Synopses & Reviews
Review
"[A]n entertaining as well as informative book.... Burns provides sharp analysis, explaining just how the industry exercised unprecedented power over the average American’s thoughts about news events such as the McCarthy hearings, social changes such as civil rights protests, and the roles of women and African Americans. This well-researched book contains a nice combination of serious topics and humorous anecdotes, plus an insightful bibliography. VERDICT: Reading a work by Burns is like having a delightful, intelligent conversation with a cultural expert. Highly recommended for TV history enthusiasts as well as general readers."
—Library Journal
Review
"Eric Burns's lapel-grabbing title does his book a disservice. The invocation of a 1956 sci-fi movie that made people wary of watermelons is at odds with his more sober judgments about how the new medium changed the country. Television did not turn us into zombies: "What we Americans learned to do as the fifties progressed was incorporate television into our lives rather than allow our lives to be controlled by it. The medium became a choice rather than a czar."
James Morris, The Wilson Quarterly (Read the entire )
Synopsis
When the first television was demonstrated in 1927, a headline in The New York Times read, “Like a Photo Come to Life.” It was a momentous occasion. But the power of television wasn’t fully harnessed until the 1950s, when the medium was, as Eric Burns says, “At its most preoccupying, its most life-altering.” And Burns, a former NBC News correspondent who is an Emmy-winner for his broadcast writing, knows about the impact of television.
Invasion of the Mind Snatchers chronicles the influence of television that was watched daily by the baby boomer generation. As kids became spellbound by Howdy Doody and The Ed Sullivan Show, Burns reveals, they often acted out their favorite programs. Likewise, they purchased the merchandise being promoted by performers, and became fascinated by the personalities they saw on screen, often emulating their behavior. It was the first generation raised by TV and Burns looks at both the promise of broadcasting as espoused by the inventors, and how that promise was both redefined and lost by the corporations who helped to spread the technology.
Yet Burns also contextualizes the social, cultural, and political events that helped shape the Fifties—from Sputnik and the Rosenberg trial to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare. In doing so, he charts the effect of television on politics, religion, race, and sex, and how the medium provided a persuasive message to the young, impressionable viewers.
About the Author
Eric Burns is a cultural historian and former television journalist. He was named by the Washington Journalism Review as one of the best writers in the history of broadcast journalism. His books include The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol, and The Smoke of the Gods: A Social History of Tobacco (both Temple), which were named the "Best of the Best" by the American Library Association. He is also the author of Broadcast Blues, The Joy of Books, and Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism.
Table of Contents
A Note to Readers
Introduction: Philo T. Farnsworth’s Discontent
Part I: The Medium
1. Damning the “Theenk”
2. The New American Family
3. The Hula Hoop and the Bomb
4. Invisible Doughnuts and Coonskin Caps
5. “Really Big Shows”
6. The Competition
Part II: The Messages
7. The First Senator
8. The Second Senator
9. The Third Senator
10. Advertising for President
11. The Mystic Knights of the Sea
12. “The Technological Equivalent of a Crucifix”
13. Sexless Objects
14. The Constant Parade
15. Serving the Sky Chief
16. The Black Sox of the Airwaves
Epilogue: The Man with a Secret
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index