Sign-In
Cart
Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night
Paperback
20th Century United States HistoryGeneral SociologyGeneral World History
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 0195168968
ISBN13: 9780195168969
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Oct 31 2003
Pages: 198
Weight: 0.54
Height: 0.53 Width: 5.14 Depth: 8.02
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780195168969
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Oct 31 2003
Pages: 198
Weight: 0.54
Height: 0.53 Width: 5.14 Depth: 8.02
Language: English
Boasting a rich, complex history rooted in Celtic and Christian ritual, Halloween has evolved from ethnic celebration to a blend of street festival, fright night, and vast commercial enterprise. In this colorful history, Nicholas Rogers takes a lively, entertaining look at the cultural origins and development of one of the most popular holidays of the year.
Drawing on a fascinating array of sources, from classical history to Hollywood films, Rogers traces Halloween as it emerged from the Celtic festival of Samhain (summer's end), picked up elements of the Christian Hallowtide (All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day), arrived in North America as an Irish and Scottish festival, and evolved into an unofficial but large-scale holiday by the early 20th century. He examines the 1970s and '80s phenomena of Halloween sadism (razor blades in apples) and inner-city violence (arson in Detroit), as well as the immense influence of the horror film genre on the reinvention of Halloween as a terror-fest. Throughout his vivid account, Rogers shows how Halloween remains, at its core, a night of inversion, when social norms are turned upside down, and a temporary freedom of expression reigns supreme. He examines how this very license has prompted censure by the religious Right, occasional outrage from law enforcement officials, and appropriation by Left-leaning political groups.
Engagingly written and based on extensive research, Halloween is the definitive history of the most bewitching day of the year, illuminating the intricate history and shifting cultural forces behind this enduring trick-or-treat holiday.
Engagingly written and based on extensive research, Halloween is the definitive history of the most bewitching day of the year, illuminating the intricate history and shifting cultural forces behind this enduring trick-or-treat holiday.
Also in
General World History
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
$10.99
Titanic: The Ship Magnificent - Volume Two: Interior Design and Fitting Out
Beveridge, Bruce
Braunschweiger, Art
Hall, Steve
Hardcover
$84.50
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
$236.28
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
From $12.99
A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Hardcover
$12.99
Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book
Bittman, Mark
Hardcover
$10.99
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
$10.99
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
$10.99
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Loewen, James W.
Paperback
$9.99
The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II
Groom, Winston
Paperback
From $9.99
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
McNeill, J. R.
Paperback
$10.99
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
$17.10
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Baron, Scott
Wise, James E.
Hardcover
$8.99
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
Green, John
Hardcover
From $17.99
The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail
Dolin, Eric Jay
Hardcover
From $19.99
1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World
Ahamed, Liaquat
Hardcover
$28.80
Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution
Kiernan, Denise
Hardcover
$28.80
The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy
Ross, Steven J.
Hardcover
$29.69
100 Bible Verses That Made America: Defining Moments That Shaped Our Enduring Foundation of Faith
Morgan, Robert J.
Paperback
$21.84
The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Hardcover
$27.00
True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--From Azure to Zinc Pink
Stamper, Kory
Hardcover
$28.80
How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words
Galer, Sophia Smith
Hardcover
$28.80
The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery
Tiffany, Kaitlyn
Hardcover
$31.50
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
$47.50
Two Ships: Jamestown 1619, Plymouth 1620, and the Struggle for the Soul of America
Reynolds, David S.
Hardcover
$31.50
American Pope: Leo XIV's Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City
Burke, Daniel
Detrow, Scott
Hardcover
$31.34
Lightning Beneath the Sea: The Race to Wire the World and the Dawn of the Information Age
Tabor, James M.
Hardcover
$28.79
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover
$27.00
The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic
Stewart, Lindsey
Hardcover
$33.25
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
Sides, Hampton
Paperback
$17.10
Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics
McElya, Micki
Hardcover
$30.40
A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps
Elledge, Jonn
Paperback
$17.06
The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World
Pancevski, Bojan
Hardcover
$26.99
How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women
Venditozzi, Zoe
Mitchell, Claire
Paperback
$18.04
No One's Coming: The Rogue Heroes Our Government Turns to When There's Nowhere Else to Turn
Hazzard, Kevin
Hardcover
$28.50
Socialism: The Real History from Plato to the Present: How the Deep State Capitalizes on Crises to Consolidate Control [With Paperback Book]
Federer, William J.
Paperback
$19.00
Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America
Loeffler, James
Hardcover
$26.99
The Phantom: The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill
Clavin, Tom
Drury, Bob
Hardcover
$31.35
Captain's Dinner: A Shipwreck, an Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History
Cohen, Adam
Hardcover
$28.80
The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America
Williams, Geoff
Hardcover
$33.25
Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City
Brown, Kate
Hardcover
$28.79
Freedom's Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education
Headlee, Celeste
Hardcover
$29.44
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Paperback
From $11.99
The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within Us Slave Culture
Woodard, Vincent
Paperback
$56.55
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Egan, Timothy
Paperback
$16.20
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
McGilchrist, Iain
Paperback
$21.80
The Long Run: Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, and the Decade That Made the Marathon Cool
Dugard, Martin
Hardcover
$28.80
How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession
Blackwell Baines, Caitlin
Hardcover
$28.45