Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment

So, it turns out much to everyone's surprise that our mediatainment industries are not churning out quite so much despicable junk to poison the minds of our children. Seems that violence has always permeated our entertainment, and at times in the past the amount of killings, etc., actually superceded today's low standards. So is it evil or does it actually help our kids by letting them dispel fears and anger via fantasy and fun? Read Schechter's intelligent study and decide for yourself.

An interesting book on the spectacle of violence. Written more like a casual read than an educational text, it is nonetheless factual and makes pertinent points about moral panic and the way in which we as a species engage with violent entertainment.

I stumbled upon this book while searching for a source for a research paper that I was doing. This book brought into view many interesting perspectives which I had not thought of. Definitely a must-read.

Shocking. Should be followed by: "Demonic Males---Apes and the Origins of Human Violence" by Wrangham and Peterson; "The Murderer Next Door---Why We Kill" by David Buss; "Heroes, Rogues, and Lovers" by Dabbs and "The Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom. Anyone reading all those books will be left with no doubt that we evolved from apes.

Despite my heavy reading load, I couldn't put this book down. It was a great trip down the sick and twisted history of our entertainment desires. The author does a good job of telling the story of how children's entertainment (and entertainment in general) of become more humane, not less. The spectre of video games like Grand Theft Auto cloud our collective memories about the nature of childhood entertainment spanning many generations past. Your enjoyment of this book will serve as evidence for the author's argument.