W. Scott Poole's Books

Wasteland

The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror

By: W. Scott Poole

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Wasteland

The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror

By: W. Scott Poole

Historian and Bram Stoker Award nominee W. Scott Poole traces the confluence of military history, technology, and art that gave us modern horror films and literature. From Nosferatu to Frankenstein’s monster, from Fritz Lang to James Whale, the touchstones of horror can all trace their roots to the bloodshed of the First World War. Bram Stoker Award nominee W. Scott Poole traces the confluence of military history, technology, and art in the wake of World War I to show how overwhelming carnage gave birth to a wholly new art form: modern horror films and literature. "Thoroughly engrossing cultural study . . . Poole persuasively argues that the birth of horror as a genre is rooted in the unprecedented destruction and carnage of WWI." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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Page Count

304

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1619022885

ISBN 13

9781619022881

Monsters in America

Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting

By: W. Scott Poole

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Monsters in America

Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting

By: W. Scott Poole

Monsters are here to stay.--Christopher James Blythe "Journal of Religion and Popular Culture

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Page Count

311

Published Date

ISBN 10

1481308823

ISBN 13

9781481308823

Satan in America

The Devil We Know

By: W. Scott Poole

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Satan in America

The Devil We Know

By: W. Scott Poole

Satan in America tells the story of America's complicated relationship with the devil. "New light" evangelists of the eighteenth century, enslaved African Americans, demagogic politicians, and modern American film-makers have used the devil to damn their enemies, explain the nature of evil and injustice, mount social crusades, construct a national identity, and express anxiety about matters as diverse as the threat of war to the dangers of deviant sexuality. The idea of the monstrous and the bizarre providing cultural metaphors that interact with historical change is not new. Poole takes a new tack by examining this idea in conjunction with the concerns of American religious history. The book shows that both the range and the scope of American religiousness made theological evil an especially potent symbol. Satan appears repeatedly on the political, religious, and cultural landscape of the United States, a shadow self to the sunny image of American progress and idealism.

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Page Count

276

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1442200626

ISBN 13

9781442200623

In the Mountains of Madness

The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of H.P. Lovecraft

By: W. Scott Poole

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In the Mountains of Madness

The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of H.P. Lovecraft

By: W. Scott Poole

This brilliant and page-turning book reveals the importance of H.P. Lovecraft in a way no one has before--a survey of his life but, more importantly, an examination of his influence that stretches throughout the entertainment industry and into society as a whole. Interweaving the biography of the legendary writer with an exploration of Lovecraft as a phenomenon, In the Mountains of Madness strives to explain this reclusive, cultish figure while challenging some of the general views held by Lovecraft devotees. Focusing specifically on the large cross-section of horror and science fiction fans who know Lovecraft through films, role-playing games, and video games directly influenced by his work, but who know little or nothing about the man himself, In the Mountains of Madness places Lovecraft and his work in a cultural context, as an artist more in tune with our time than his own. More than a traditional biography, this provocative book reclaims the true essence of Lovecraft in relation to the comics of Joe Lansdale, the novels of Stephen King, and some of the biggest blockbuster films in contemporary America, proving the undying influence of this rare and significant figure.

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Page Count

320

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1619028565

ISBN 13

9781619028562

Dark Carnivals

Modern Horror and the Origins of American Empire

By: W. Scott Poole

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Dark Carnivals

Modern Horror and the Origins of American Empire

By: W. Scott Poole

The panoramic story of how the horror genre transformed into one of the most incisive critiques of unchecked American imperial power The American empire emerged from the shadows of World War II. As the nation’s influence swept the globe with near impunity, a host of evil forces followed—from racism, exploitation, and military invasion to killer clowns, flying saucers, and monsters borne of a fear of the other. By viewing American imperial history through the prism of the horror genre, Dark Carnivals lays bare how the genre shaped us, distracted us, and gave form to a violence as American as apple pie. A carnival ride that connects the mushroom clouds of 1945 to the beaches of Amity Island, Charles Manson to the massacre at My Lai, and John Wayne to John Wayne Gacy, the new book by acclaimed historian W. Scott Poole reveals how horror films and fictions have followed the course of America’s military and cultural empire and explores how the shadow of our national sins can take on the form of mass entertainment.

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Page Count

385

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1640096124

ISBN 13

9781640096127

The Palmetto State

The Making of Modern South Carolina

By: Jack Bass,W. Scott Poole

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The Palmetto State

The Making of Modern South Carolina

By: Jack Bass,W. Scott Poole

A concise approach to the major themes and events that define contemporary South Carolina The captivating, colorful, and controversial history of South Carolina continues to warrant fresh explorations. In this sweeping story of defining episodes in the state's history, accomplished historians Jack Bass and W. Scott Poole trace the importance of race relations, historical memory, and cultural life in the progress of the Palmetto State from its colonial inception to the present day. In the discussion of contemporary South Carolina that makes up the majority of this volume, the authors map the ways through which hard-won economic and civil rights advancements, a succession of progressive state leaders, and federal court mandates operated in tandem to bring a largely peaceful end to the Jim Crow era in South Carolina, in stark contrast to the violence wrought elsewhere in the South. This volume speaks directly to the connections between the state's past, present, and future, and it serves as a valuable point of entrance for new inquiries into South Carolina's diverse and complex heritage.

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Page Count

416

Publisher

Univ of South Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1611171326

ISBN 13

9781611171327

Never Surrender

Confederate Memory and Conservatism in the South Carolina Upcountry

By: W. Scott Poole

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Never Surrender

Confederate Memory and Conservatism in the South Carolina Upcountry

By: W. Scott Poole

Near Appomattox, during a cease-fire in the final hours of the Civil War, Confederate general Martin R. Gary harangued his troops to stand fast and not lay down their arms. Stinging the soldiers' home-state pride, Gary reminded them that "South Carolinians never surrender." By focusing on a reactionary hotbed within a notably conservative state--South Carolina's hilly western "upcountry"--W. Scott Poole chronicles the rise of a post-Civil War southern culture of defiance whose vestiges are still among us. The society of the rustic antebellum upcountry, Poole writes, clung to a set of values that emphasized white supremacy, economic independence, masculine honor, evangelical religion, and a rejection of modernity. In response to the Civil War and its aftermath, this amorphous tradition cohered into the Lost Cause myth, by which southerners claimed moral victory despite military defeat. It was a force that would undermine Reconstruction and, as Poole shows in chapters on religion, gender, and politics, weave its way into nearly every dimension of white southern life. The Lost Cause's shadow still looms over the South, Poole argues, in contemporary controversies such as those over the display of the Confederate flag. Never Surrender brings new clarity to the intellectual history of southern conservatism and the South's collective memory of the Civil War.

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Page Count

284

Publisher

University of Georgia Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0820325074

ISBN 13

9780820325071

Vampira

Dark Goddess of Horror

By: W. Scott Poole

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Vampira

Dark Goddess of Horror

By: W. Scott Poole

This whip-smart piece of pop culture details the life of the cult horror figure, as well as the much wider story of 1950s America, its treatment of women and sex, and a fascinating swath of Hollywood history. In Vampira, Poole gives us the eclectic life of the dancer, stripper, actress, and artist Maila Nurmi, who would reinvent herself as Vampira during the backdrop of 1950s America, an era of both chilling conformity and the nascent rumblings of the countercultural response that led from the Beats and free jazz to the stirring of the LGBT movement and the hardcore punk scene in the bohemian enclave along Melrose Avenue. A veteran of the New York stage and late nights at Hollywood's hipster hangouts, Nurmi would eventually be linked to Elvis, Orson Welles, and James Dean, as well as stylist and photographer Rudi Gernreich, founder of the Mattachine Society and designer of the thong. Thanks to rumors of a romance between Vampira and James Dean, his tragic death inspired the circulation of stories that she had cursed him and, better yet, had access to his dead body for use in her dark arts. In Poole's expert hands, Vampira is more than the story of a highly creative artist continually reinventing herself, but a parable of the runaway housewife bursting the bounds of our straight-laced conventions with an exuberant display of camp, sex, and creative individuality that owed something to the morbid New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams, the evil queen from Disney's Snow White, and the popular, underground bondage magazine Bizarre, and forward to the staged excesses of Madonna and Lady Gaga. Vampira is a wildly compelling tour through a forgotten piece of pop cultural history, one with both cultish and literary merit, sure to capture the imagination of Vampira fans new and old.

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Age

Page Count

191

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1619024209

ISBN 13

9781619024205

Book's by W. Scott Poole

Wasteland

Wasteland

Monsters in America

Monsters in America

Satan in America

Satan in America

In the Mountains of Madness

In the Mountains of Madness

Dark Carnivals

Dark Carnivals

The Palmetto State

The Palmetto State

Never Surrender

Never Surrender

Vampira

Vampira

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