Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News
- ISBN-10
- 0809031639
- ISBN-13
- 9780809031634
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 352
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2015-05-05
- Publisher
- Hill and Wang
- Author
- A. Brad Schwartz
Description
On the evening of October 30, 1938, radio listeners across the United States heard a startling report of a meteor strike in the New Jersey countryside. With sirens blaring in the background, announcers in the field described mysterious creatures, terrifying war machines, and thick clouds of poison gas moving toward New York City. As the invading force approached Manhattan, some listeners sat transfixed, while others ran to alert neighbors or to call the police. Some even fled their homes. But the hair-raising broadcast was not a real news bulletin-it was Orson Welles's adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic The War of the Worlds. In Broadcast Hysteria, A. Brad Schwartz boldly retells the story of Welles's famed radio play and its impact. Did it really spawn a "wave of mass hysteria," as The New York Times reported? Schwartz is the first to examine the hundreds of letters sent to Orson Welles himself in the days after the broadcast, and his findings challenge the conventional wisdom. Few listeners believed an actual attack was under way. But even so, Schwartz shows that Welles's broadcast became a major scandal, prompting a different kind of mass panic as Americans debated the bewitching power of the radio and the country's vulnerability in a time of crisis. When the debate was over, American broadcasting had changed for good, but not for the better. As Schwartz tells this story, we observe how an atmosphere of natural disaster and impending war permitted broadcasters to create shared live national experiences for the first time. We follow Orson Welles's rise to fame and watch his manic energy and artistic genius at work in the play's hurried yet innovative production. And we trace the present-day popularity of "fake news" back to its source in Welles's show and its many imitators. Schwartz's original research, gifted storytelling, and thoughtful analysis make Broadcast Hysteria a groundbreaking new look at a crucial but little-understood episode in American history.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2015-05-05
- 351 pages
- Paperback
- Macmillan
Similar books
-
The War of the Worlds
By H. G. WellsThis is an unabridged version of one of the first fictional accounts of extraterrestrial invasion. H. G. Wells's military science fiction novel was first published in book form in 1898, and is considered a classic of English literature.
-
Spooked!: How a Radio Broadcast and the War of the Worlds Sparked the 1938 Invasion of America
By Gail JarrowRobert F. Sibert Informational Honor Book School Library Journal Best Book of the Year Booklist Editors' Choice Washington Post Best Children's Book BCCB Blue Ribbon A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books This book for young ...
-
Stop Mass Hysteria: America's Insanity from the Salem Witch Trials to the Trump Witch Hunt
By Michael SavageIn his new book, Stop Mass Hysteria, #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Savage not only deconstructs the Left's unhinged response to traditional American values like borders, language, and culture, but takes the reader on an ...
-
The War of the Worlds Illustrated
By H G WellsThe War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialized in 1897 by Pearson's Magazine in the UK and by Cosmopolitan magazine in the US. The novel's first appearance in hardcover was in 1898 from ...
-
Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago
By Max Allan Collins, A. Brad SchwartzCollins and Schwartz have recaptured a bygone bullet-ridden era while uncovering the previously unrevealed truth behind Scarface’s downfall. Together they have crafted the definitive work on Capone, Ness, and the battle for Chicago.
-
We Interrupt this Broadcast: Relive the Events that Stopped Our Lives-- from the Hindenburg to the Death of Princess Diana
By Joe GarnerDescribes such radio and television news stories as the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassinations, and the Challenger explosion
-
Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements
By David NasawDavid Nasaw has written a sparkling social history of twentieth-century show business and of the new American public that assembled in the city's pleasure palaces, parks, theaters, nickelodeons, world's fair midways, and dance halls.
-
Mass Hysteria in Schools: A Worldwide History Since 1566
By Robert E. Bartholomew, Bob RickardThis book comprehensively surveys the colorful history of mass hysteria and kindred phenomena in schools, documenting outbreaks of demonic possession during witchcraft scares, to modern incidents of collapsing bands, itching frenzies, ghost ...
-
Waging The War of the Worlds: A History of the 1938 Radio Broadcast and Resulting Panic, Including the Original Script
By Howard Koch, John GoslingThis book examines all aspects of the historic broadcast in depth, including fascination with Mars, H.G. Wells' novel, Orson Welles and the making of the broadcast, initial reactions and the resulting "fog of war," anxieties underlying the ...
-
Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher: Hunting America's Deadliest Unidentified Serial Killer at the Dawn of Modern Criminology
By Max Allan Collins, Austin Bradley Schwartz"In the spirit of Devil in the White City and Furious Hours comes the haunting true story of Eliot Ness's forgotten final case-his years-long hunt for "The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run," a serial killer who terrorized Cleveland through the ...