Michael Barson
Michael Barson
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BIOGRAPHY

Michael Barson is the author of more than a dozen books that examine various facets of American popular culture in the 20th century, about which he has been interviewed by National Public Radio on several occasions. He has a Ph.D. in American Culture and a Masters degree in Popular Culture, both from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Born in Massachusetts at the dawn of the Eisenhower era, Barson has lived and worked in the New York City area since 1981. At present he is Senior Director of Publicity for Putnam. 

Barson is the author of more than a dozen books, including Agonizing Love: The Golden Era of Romance Comics (2011), True West: An Illustrated Guide to the Heyday of the Western (2008), Red Scared! The Commie Menace in Propaganda and Popular Culture (2001), and Teenage Confidential: An Illustrated History of the American Teen (1998, 2005).

Primary Contributions (186)
Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood in Singin' in the Rain, joyfully hanging from a lamppost with an umbrella during a nighttime rainstorm on a city street.
Gene Kelly was an American dancer, actor, choreographer, and motion-picture director whose athletic style of dancing, combined with classical ballet technique, transformed the movie musical and did much to change the American public’s conception of male dancers. One of five children born to a…
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Publications (3)
Agonizing Love The Golden Era of Romance Comics
Agonizing Love The Golden Era of Romance Comics (May 2011)
By Michael Barson

Agonizing Love is a rich anthology of those legendary romance comic books that once filled newsstands to overflowing during their heyday in the 1940s and '50s. "I Craved His Kisses," "With Hate in My Heart," "Kisses Came Second," "Flame of Jealousy," "Was I a Wicked Wife?": these stories are just a taste of the absolutely riveting dramas that play out in the sob-racked pages of this evocative collection. Agonizing Love—is there any other kind?—runs the narrative gamut from honeymoon...

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Red Scared! The Commie Menace in Propaganda and Popular Culture
Red Scared! The Commie Menace in Propaganda and Popular Culture (April 2001)
By Michael Barson, Steven Heller
Not long ago, Communists seemed to be everywhere: among our politicians, neighbors, favorite actors--even in our drinking water. Red Scared! is a wry tour of the frosty decades of Soviet and American adversity, when anti-Communist hysteria produced fairly hysterical pop-culture items. The voluminous propaganda that the United States produced to combat the Red Menace--not only officially, but in books, films, magazines, games, and more--is explored and vibrantly reproduced here. With a colorful...
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The Illustrated Who's who of Hollywood Directors
The Illustrated Who's who of Hollywood Directors (1995)
By Michael Barson
REF With a style and format reminiscent of David Shipman's The Great Movie Stars (1970), Barson's book engagingly analyzes the work of 197 important directors whose directorial careers began before 1975. Two- to eight-page essays on 151 men and two women (Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino) are supplemented by briefer summaries of 44 others. George Sherman seems to be the only prolific director omitted. A few Brits are included: Hitchcock, John Schlesinger, and John Boorman but not, surprisingly, J. Lee...
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