Hard-Boiled Masculinities - 9780816644346

Hard-Boiled MasculinitiesAuthor(s): Christopher Breu\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: University of Minnesota Press, United States\nImprint: University of Minnesota Press\nISBN-13: 9780816644346, 978-0816644346\nSynopsis\nThe persona of the American male in the period between the two world wars was characterized by physical strength, emotional detachment, aggressive behavior, and an amoral worldview. This ideal of a hard-boiled masculinity can be seen in the pages and, even more vividly, on the covers of magazines such as Black Mask, which shifted from Victorian-influenced depictions of men in top hats and mustaches in the early 1920s to the portrayal of much more overtly violent and muscular men.\n\nLooking closely at this transformation, Christopher Breu offers a complex account of how and why hard-boiled masculinity emerged during an unsettled time of increased urbanization and tenuous peace and traces the changes in its cultural conception as it moved back and forth across the divi.