Cotton

Lee Cotton is a black boy born white-skinned in segregated Eureka, Mississippi, in 1950. Over the course of Lee's first twenty years, he will fall in love with the daughter of a local Klansman, get kicked senseless and left for dead on a freight train headed north, end up in St. Louis as a white man, and be drafted into the psych-ops corps in Nevada. There, a drunken accident will separate Lee from another part of his identity and change his fate yet again. Before he returns to Mississippi, he will experience up close and personal the women's liberation movement and the dawn of the Lesbian Nation. Lee Cotton's voice-equal parts Delta Blues and Motown-takes us on an exhilarating freedom ride through America's preoccupation with identity politics. His funny, forgiving charm ultimately embodies a serious message: The freaks and oddities of this world may well be divine.

Literature & Fiction

Wilson, Christopher P.

United States

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

Cop Knowledge: Police Power and Cultural Narrative in Twentieth-Century America

Whether they appear in mystery novels or headline news stories, on prime-time TV or the silver screen, few figures have maintained such an extraordinary hold on the American cultural imagination as modern police officers. Why are we so fascinated with the police and their power? What relation do these pervasive media representations bear to the actual history of modern policing?Christopher P. Wilson explores these questions by examining narratives of police power in crime news, popular fiction, and film, showing how they both reflect and influence the real strategies of law enforcement on the beat, in the squad room, and in urban politics. He takes us from Theodore Roosevelt's year of reform with the 1890s NYPD to the rise of "community policing," from the classic "police procedural" film The Naked City to the bestselling novels of LAPD veteran Joseph Wambaugh. Wilson concludes by demonstrating the ways in which popular storytelling about police power has been intimately tied to the course of modern liberalism, and to the rising tide of neoconservatism today. "A thorough, brilliant blend that crosses disciplines."—Choice"[S]ophisticated, highly theoretical and ambitious. . . . Connects the history of policing to cultural representations of crime, criminals and cops."—Times Literary Supplement"[A] deeply satisfying approach to the crime narrative. . . . [Wilson] focuses, ultimately, on the role of police power in cultural storytelling."—American Quarterly

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

University of Chicago Press

Whether they appear in mystery novels or headline news stories, on prime-time TV or the silver screen, few figures have maintained such an extraordinary hold on the American cultural imagination as modern police officers. Why are we so fascinated with the police and their power? What relation do these pervasive media representations bear to the actual history of modern policing? Christopher P. Wilson explores these questions by examining narratives of police power in crime news, popular fiction, and film, showing how they both reflect and influence the real strategies of law enforcement on the beat, in the squad room, and in urban politics. He takes us from Theodore Roosevelt's year of reform with the 1890s NYPD to the rise of "community policing," from the classic "police procedural" film The Naked City to the bestselling novels of LAPD veteran Joseph Wambaugh. Wilson concludes by demonstrating the ways in which popular storytelling about police power has been intimately tied to the course of modern liberalism, and to the rising tide of neoconservatism today. "A thorough, brilliant blend that crosses disciplines."—Choice "[S]ophisticated, highly theoretical and ambitious. . . . Connects the history of policing to cultural representations of crime, criminals and cops."—Times Literary Supplement "[A] deeply satisfying approach to the crime narrative. . . . [Wilson] focuses, ultimately, on the role of police power in cultural storytelling."—American Quarterly

Learning to Live with Crime: American Crime Narrative in the Neoconservative Turn

 Since the mid-1960s, the war on crime has reshaped public attitudes about state authority, criminal behavior, and the responsibilities of citizenship. But how have American writers grappled with these changes? What happens when a journalist approaches the workings of organized crime not through its legendary Godfathers but through a workaday, low-level figure who informs on his mob? Why is it that interrogation scenes have become so central to prime-time police dramas of late? What is behind writers’ recent fascination with “cold case” homicides, with private security, or with prisons? In Learning to Live with Crime, Christopher P. Wilson examines this war on crime and how it has made its way into cultural representation and public consciousness. Under the sway of neoconservative approaches to criminal justice and public safety, Americans have been urged to see crime as an inevitable risk of modern living and to accept ever more aggressive approaches to policing, private security, and punishment. The idea has been not simply to fight crime but to manage its risks; to inculcate personal vigilance in citizens; and to incorporate criminals’ knowledge through informants and intelligence gathering. At its most scandalous, this study suggests, contemporary law enforcement has even come to mimic crime’s own operations.   

History & Criticism

Ohio State University Press

<div> Since the mid-1960s, the war on crime has reshaped public attitudes about state authority, criminal behavior, and the responsibilities of citizenship. But how have American writers grappled with these changes?&nbsp;What happens when a journalist approaches the workings of organized crime not through its legendary Godfathers but through a workaday, low-level figure who informs on his mob? Why is it that interrogation scenes have become so central to prime-time police dramas of late? What is behind writers' recent fascination with "cold case" homicides, with private security, or with prisons? In Learning to Live with Crime, Christopher P. Wilson examines this war on crime and how it has made its way into cultural representation and public consciousness. Under the sway of neoconservative approaches to criminal justice and public safety, Americans have been urged to see crime as an inevitable risk of modern living and to accept ever more aggressive approaches to policing, private security, and punishment. The idea has been not simply to fight crime but to manage its risks; to inculcate personal vigilance in citizens; and to incorporate criminals' knowledge through informants and intelligence gathering. At its most scandalous, this study suggests, contemporary law enforcement has even come to mimic crime's own operations. &nbsp; <div>&nbsp;</div> </div>

Humor & Entertainment

Television

In the three decades after 1885, a virtual explosion in the nation’s print media―newspaper tabloids, inexpensive magazines, and best-selling books―vaulted the American writer to unprecedented heights of cultural and political influence. The Labor of Words traces the impact of this mass literary marketplace on Progressive era writers. Using the works and careers of Jack London, Upton Sinclair, David Graham Phillips, and Lincoln Steffens as case studies, Christopher P. Wilson measures the advantages and costs of the new professional literary role and captures the drama of this transformative epoch in American journalism and letters.

The Labor of Words: Literary Professionalism in the Progressive Era

University of Georgia Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wilson, Christopher P.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wilson, Christopher P.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wilson, Christopher P.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Cotton

Cop Knowledge: Police Power and Cultural Narrative in Twentieth-Century America

Cop Knowledge: Police Power and Cultural Narrative in Twentieth-Century America

Learning to Live with Crime: American Crime Narrative in the Neoconservative Turn

Learning to Live with Crime: American Crime Narrative in the Neoconservative Turn

The Labor of Words: Literary Professionalism in the Progressive Era