China and the American Dream

From the "Red Menace" to Tiananmen Square, the United States and China have long had an emotionally tumultuous relationship. Richard Madsen's frank and innovative examination of the moral history of U.S.-China relations targets the forces that have shaped this surprisingly strong tie between two strikingly different nations. Combining his expertise as a sinologist with the vision of America developed in Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, Madsen studies the cultural myths that have shaped the perceptions of people of both nations for the past twenty-five years.

The dominant American myth about China, born in the 1960s, foresaw Western ideals of economic, intellectual, and political freedom emerging triumphant throughout the world. Nixon's visit to China nurtured this idea, and by the 1980s it was helping to sustain America's hopefulness about its own democratic identity. Meanwhile, Chinese popular culture has focused on the U.S., especially American consumer goods—Coca-Cola was described by the People's Daily as "capitalism concentrated in a bottle."

Today we face a new global institutional and cultural environment in which the old myths no longer work for either Americans or Chinese. Madsen provides a framework for us to think about the relationship between democratic ideals and economic/political realities in the post-Cold War world. What he proposes is no less than the foundation for building a public philosophy for the emerging world order.

Richard Madsen is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. He is coauthor of Habits of the Heart (California, 1985) and The Good Society (1991), author of Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (California, 1984), and coauthor of Chen Village under Mao and Deng (California, 1992).

Preface 
Introduction: Entertainment as Social Control
    DONALD LAZERE 
Further Readings 

Part I. MEDIA AND MANIPULATION
Introduction 
Further Readings 
Reshaping the Truth: Pragmatists and Propagandists in America
    ALEX CAREY 
Selling to Ms. Consumer CAROL ASCHER 
The Blockbuster Decades: The Media as Big Business
    WALTER POWELL 
The Corporate Complaint Against the Media
    PETER DREIER 
Conservative Media Criticism: Heads I Win, Tails You Lose 
    DONALD LAZERE
    
Part II. CAPITALISM AND AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY
Introduction 
Further Readings I 
Doublespeak and Ideology in Ads: A Kit for Teachers
    RICHARD OHMANN 
Stars, Status, Mobility JEREMY TUNSTALL I 
From Menace to Messiah: The History and Historicity of Superman
    THOMAS ANDRAE 
Domesticating Nature TODD GITLIN 
The lnfantilizing of Culture ARIEL DORFMAN

Part III. MOMENTS OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Introduction 
Further Readings 
Shirley Temple and the House of Rockefeller CHARLES ECKERT 
Frank Capra and the Popular Front LEONARD QUART 
The Politics of Power in On the Waterfront
    PETER BISKIND 
Machismo and Hollywood's Working Class 
    PETER BISKIND AND BARBARA EHRENREICH 
Gimme Shelter: Feminism, Fantasy, and Women's Popular Fiction
    KATE ELLIS 
    
Part IV. THE MASS-MEDIATION OF POPULAR AND OPPOSITIONAL CULTURE
Introduction 
Further Readings 
Television's Screens: Hegemony in Transition
    TODD GITLIN 
The Search for Tomorrow in Today's Soap Operas
    TANIA MODLESKI 
The Blues Tradition: Poetic Revolt or Cultural Impasse? 
    CARL BOGGS AND RAY PRATT 
Working People's Music GEORGE LIPSITZ 
Rock and Popular Culture SIMON FRITH 

Part V. IDEOLOGY IN PERCEPTION, STRUCTURE, AND GENRE
Introduction 
Further Readings 
Representation and the News Narrative: The Web of Facticity
    GAYE TUCHMAN 
Daffy Duck and Bertolt Brecht: Toward a Politics of Self-Reflexive
Cinema? DANA B. POLAN 
Women and Representation: Can We Enjoy Alternative Pleasure?
    JANE GAINES 
Masterpiece Theatre and the Uses of Tradition TIMOTHY BRENNAN 
The Liberating Potential of the Fantastic in Contemporary Fairy Tales
for Children JACK ZIPES 

Part VI. MEDIA, LITERACY, AND POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION
Introduction 
Further Readings 
The Teachings of the Media Curriculum NEIL POSTMAN 
Class as the Determinant of Political Communication
    CLAUS MUELLER 
Charting the Mainstream: Television's Contributions to Political
Orientations GEORGE GERBNER, LARRY GROSS, MICHAEL MORGAN, AND
NANCY SIGNORJELLI 
Mass Culture and the Eclipse of Reason: The Implications for Pedagogy 
STANLEY ARONOWITZ 

Part VII. FROM THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA TO THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI: CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
Introduction 
Further Readings 
Ambush at Kamikaze Pass TOM ENGELHARDT 
Sports and the American Empire MARK NAISON 
Introduction to How to Read Donald Duck
    DAVID KUNZLE 
The Great Parachutist ARIEL DORFMAN AND
    ARMAND MATTELART 
Media Imperialism? JEREMY TUNSTALL 

Part VIII. ALTERNATIVES AND CULTURAL ACTIVISM
Introduction 
Further Readings
Should News Be Sold for Profit? CHRISTOPHER JENCKS 
An Alternative American Communications System ROBERT CIRINO 
Pacifica Radio and the Politics of Culture CLARE SPARK 
A Course on Spectator Sports LOUIS KAMPF 
Rethinking Guerrilla Theater, 1971, 1985 R. G. DAVIS 
Public Access Television: Alternative Views DOUGLAS KELLNER