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Summary
Summary
The glitter of 1920s America was seductive, from jazz, flappers, and wild all- night parties to the birth of Hollywood and a glamorous gangster-led crime scene flourishing under Prohibition. But the period was also punctuated by momentous events-the political show trials of Sacco and Vanzetti, the huge Ku Klux Klan march down Washington DC's Pennsylvania Avenue-and it produced a dizzying array of writers, musicians, and film stars, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Bessie Smith and Charlie Chaplin. In Anything Goes, Lucy Moore interweaves the stories of the compelling people and events that characterized the decade to produce a gripping portrait of the Jazz Age. She reveals that the Roaring Twenties were more than just "the years between wars." It was an epoch of passion and change-an age, she observes, not unlike our own.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Quickstepping over the surface of the 1920s, a high-octane and high-speed decade that F. Scott Fitzgerald christened the Jazz Age, U.K. writer Moore (Maharinis) emphasizes that the 1920s was a time a lot like our recent past. Moore approaches her material thematically more than chronologically, centering on the usual 1920s icons, from Al Capone to flappers, which permits her to examine how revolutionary a period it was, despite the narrower materialistic pursuits. Anthropologists like Margaret Mead redefined traditional roles as mere social constructs. It was the age of cigarettes, drugs, and newly liberated flappers; of Carl Van Vechten and Langston Hughes combating rampant racism; of liberated Hollywood women Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson as well as Charlie Chaplin and the even-more scandalous "Fatty" Arbuckle; of xenophobia cheek by jowl with the urbanity of the New Yorker and the Algonquin Round Table. It was the age of Lindbergh and flight and of the less heroic automobile. This illicit-booze-fueled decade of conspicuous consumption came down with a crash in 1929, and Fitzgerald wrote elegiacally, "we will never feel quite so intensely about our surroundings any more." This lightweight survey is best suited for readers not deeply familiar with this much revisited decade. (Mar. 11) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The term Roaring Twenties connotates an era of uninhibited excess, characterized by drinking, shameless flappers, jazz, and gangland wars. All of these aspects are covered in this enjoyable, if uneven, survey of the decade. Moore also convincingly asserts that this was a period of significant social and political change with long-term effects. Utilizing a topical approach, she offers interesting descriptions of the emergence of organized crime, the excesses of big business, the Harlem Renaissance, and the stirrings of civil rights activism. She provides many useful tidbits about personalities as varied as Al Capone and Marcus Garvey. As long as Moore stays with her descriptive narrative, her account moves along smoothly. Unfortunately, her efforts to analyze these trends and to link them to our current economic and political conditions don't ring true and are often based upon unwarranted assumptions. Still, for general readers, this work provides an interesting and wide-ranging look at a tumultuous period.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist
Guardian Review
Lucy Moore could not have timed her new book better. Just at the moment when economists are busy debating whether the current recession will make it into the top 10 economic meltdowns of all times along comes Moore to give us a little perspective. Out-of-control consumer spending? Unregulated banking system? Feverish need to drink and drug the jumpy self into oblivion? Check, check, check. We have been here before, and in a much worse state too, at the end of the "roaring" 1920s. If this book has a moral it is that, in the words of that balladeer of bad times Al Jolson, "you ain't seen nothing yet". Strictly speaking, Anything Goes is not actually about the shuffling dole queues and deserted farm towns of America's hunger years (although the title is left vague, Moore's book is exclusively concerned with the US). Instead, it concentrates on telling the story of the high jinks and sparkly excess that led up to the Wall Street crash of 1929 - in the process implicitly drawing parallels between then and now. Moore has previously written about Indian maharanis in the 20th century and women in revolutionary France. That she turns now to America in the 1920s suggests that she sees herself as a writer of synthesising narratives rather than original historical research. Certainly, her lack of source notes makes Anything Goes a frustrating read for anyone who wants to go any further. When, for instance, we are told that Walter Chrysler was once described as being "absolutely fair to his people, square with his customers, and faithful to his stockholders", it would be good to know whose opinion is being quoted (Walter's? His mother's? Someone in the Chrysler press office?). Likewise, on those many occasions when Moore uses evidence from a sociological survey of "Middletown" conducted in the mid-1920s, one longs to know more about the study's provenance. Why was it commissioned, who are the mysterious married couple behind it, what are their twists and kinks and unconscious bias? Most important, just where is the real "Middletown" to be found? In many ways, though, this lack of depth suits Moore's subject matter perfectly. For if her book is about anything, it is about a kind of life lived on the surface, wilfully unattached to anything beyond its own desires. In a series of thematic chapters, she skitters from Al Capone's sociopathic dominance of Prohibition Chicago to Zelda Fitzgerald's increasingly hectic dance into the eye of the storm. Along the way we meet ordinary Joes caught up in investment scams they don't understand and politicians who are a mere skip ahead of jail time. Motion pictures, dress, motor cars, drink, divorce and oodles of cash: it is these agents of transience and transformation that matter most to a country pulling itself out of a world war whose roots lay deeply mired in history. Moore's great strength, then, is her ability to range widely, hooking out the information she needs and plaiting it into a fluent survey of an entire continent over a 10-year period. One of the best chapters in the book concerns the way in which 1920s America became enthralled with the idea of the big sell. From being a country of small-time farmers, suddenly it was a nation on the make. Everyone was pushing something - a car, sweeter breath, perfect health - on to someone else. Businessmen were more revered than presidents, while industrialists like Andrew Mellon stepped up to high political office. Henry Ford called machinery "the new Messiah", while Jesus was joked to be "the first Rotarian". Being rich and being good were no longer mutually exclusive, assuming you weren't doing business with Capone (although even Al liked to think of himself as a particularly persuasive public servant). It was from within this culture of aggressive individualism and technological advancement that Charles Lindbergh made his bid for glory. The story of the young hero's transatlantic solo crossing in 1927 is well known, but Moore revisits it with a keen eye for the telling detail. Particularly gripping is her account of Lindbergh's failed attempts to get the big aeronautical companies interested in his needs. While the likes of the Fokker and Wright corporations wanted to supply him with expensively crafted three-engined monsters, complete with day beds for the co-pilots, Lindbergh knew he required something stripped down to its skeleton. In the end the Spirit of St Louis took off without a sextant, radio or parachute. The winning flight - there was, naturally, a cash prize involved - took 33 hours, during which Lindbergh did the airborne equivalent of cycling halfway around the world in the wind and rain. When he touched down at Le Bourget aerodrome on May 21, the dazzle of a thousand stray lights nearly threw him off course. Half of Paris had driven out to greet him. Kathryn Hughes's biography of Mrs Beeton is published by Harper Perennial. To order Anything Goes for pounds 18.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875. Caption: article-roaring20s.1 [Lucy Moore] has previously written about Indian maharanis in the 20th century and women in revolutionary France. That she turns now to America in the 1920s suggests that she sees herself as a writer of synthesising narratives rather than original historical research. Certainly, her lack of source notes makes Anything Goes a frustrating read for anyone who wants to go any further. When, for instance, we are told that Walter Chrysler was once described as being "absolutely fair to his people, square with his customers, and faithful to his stockholders", it would be good to know whose opinion is being quoted (Walter's? His mother's? Someone in the Chrysler press office?). Likewise, on those many occasions when Moore uses evidence from a sociological survey of "Middletown" conducted in the mid-1920s, one longs to know more about the study's provenance. Why was it commissioned, who are the mysterious married couple behind it, what are their twists and kinks and unconscious bias? Most important, just where is the real "Middletown" to be found? - Kathryn Hughes.
Kirkus Review
Moore (Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France, 2007, etc.) delivers a fast-paced portrait of the 20th-century's fizziest decade, replete with gangsters, flappers, speakeasies and jazz. The author's breezy style synchs nicely with her subject matter, and her focus on the personalities behind the history keeps the narrative engaging. Rather than presenting her material as an extended survey of the period, Moore focuses on a single Jazz Age trope per chapter, resulting in easily digestible takes on prohibition and the high-spirited criminal culture it engendered; the explosion in popularity of jazz music; the evolution of the flapper; the emergence of Hollywood as creator of a national cultural consciousness; the financial scandals of the Harding presidency; the Sacco/Vanzetti and Scopes trials; the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan; the Algonquin round table and the founding of the New Yorker; Charles Lindbergh's historic trans-Atlantic flight; the spectacular boxing career of Jack Dempsey; and the financial devastation of the Wall Street crash that ended the party and ushered in the Great Depression. The author writes more like a novelist than a historian, richly delineating her characters and their milieu. Harding is revealed as a hapless, good-time Charlie hopelessly out of his element as president; Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, beautiful and damned, drink their way across Europe; blues legend Bessie Smith lives large and brooks no fools; and communist anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti emerge as principled, quietly noble figures, unrepentant in the face of a likely gross miscarriage of justice. Moore draws some fairly obvious parallels between the '20s and our contemporary momentthe Wall Street crash, Bush as Harding redux, the gap between emerging technologies and social structures, the cult of celebritybut the point isn't labored and the fizzing pace never flags. Snappy, vivid account of America's most glittering decade. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Does Moore (Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France) want to be the next Christopher Hibbert? Hibbert, who died in 2008, wrote seemingly effortless studies of all manner of people, places, and eras-all elegantly accessible, meticulously researched books. Readers used to his high standards for popular history-and anyone who knows anything about the 1920s-will be disappointed by Moore's book. It amounts to a portrait of the era, chiefly in America, as it could have been written decades ago: there's F. Scott Fitzgerald and the ex-pat Murphys, Al Capone, the Algonquin Roundtable, Sacco and Vanzetti, a one-dimensional Warren Harding, the Scopes trial, and a Hollywood rife with scandal and apparently oblivious to any struggle over the use of sound in film. You'll hope in vain for Moore to demonstrate some special expertise, but 1920s MGM icon John Gilbert's one unindexed presence as "Jack Gilbert" with no apparent awareness by Moore of whom she's speaking is emblematic of her shallow knowledge. Any of these topics, plus the many that Moore excludes, get better treatment elsewhere. VERDICT Perhaps middle or high school students or general readers first embarking on the era will appreciate this. Others should pass.-Margaret Heilbrun, Library Journal (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations | p. 9 |
Prologue | p. 13 |
1 "You Cannot Make Your Shimmy Shake on Tea" | p. 19 |
2 "The Rhythm of Life" | p. 43 |
3 Femme Fatale | p. 69 |
4 "Five and Ten Cent Lusts and Dreams" | p. 93 |
5 "My God! How the Money Rolls In" | p. 117 |
6 "The Business of America Is Business" | p. 139 |
7 Fear of the Foreign | p. 161 |
8 The Ku Klux Klan Redux | p. 185 |
9 In Exile | p. 209 |
10 The New Yorker | p. 233 |
11 "Yes, We Have No Bananas Today" | p. 253 |
12 The Spirit of St. Louis | p. 271 |
13 The Big Fight | p. 293 |
14 Crash | p. 315 |
Bibliography | p. 333 |
Acknowledgments | p. 342 |
Index | p. 343 |