Paul A. Cantor is Clifton Waller Barrett Professor of English at the University of Virginia, USA. Among his wide-ranging and acclaimed writings on film and television, Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization was named one of the best nonfiction books of 2001 by the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
""Cantor is undoubtedly one of the most original scholars in the
field, and it will be welcome to have a collection of his essays in
a single volume."" -- William Irwin, Series Editor, Blackwell
Philosophy and Pop Culture
"Analyses how ideas about economics and political philosophy find
their way into everything from Star Trek to Malcolm in the Middle."
-- Wall Street Journal
"By dipping into pop-culture portrayals of 'both top-down and
bottom-up models of order, ' the author makes it easier and more
enjoyable for today's readers to relate to the ideas he discusses,
including Marxist ' culture industry' notions and absolute state
control a la Hobbes." -- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"Cantor can take pretty much any television show, such as
Gilligan's Isalnd, and dissect it using everything from Homer to
Shakespeare to Marshall McLuhan, and entertain you while doing it."
-- LRC Blog
"Cantor demonstrates, often in new and surprising ways, what
popular culture has to say about America's most significant
political and social issues. Cantor's book is remarkably
wide-ranging and well informed, with important insights on
everything from South Park to Have Gun--Will Travel. In this book
there is something of interest for everyone who either loves or
hates pop culture, or simply wonders what one should think of it.
There are provocative comments on every page, firmly supported by
Cantor's immense knowledge of cultural and intellectual history.
The book is brilliantly written -- smart, sharp, completely free of
jargon, and, frankly, a lot of fun." -- Stephen Cox, University of
California, San Diego
"Cantor knows all the words to the songs in the South Park movie,
speaks fluent Klingon, and has forgotten more about the X-Files
than Fox Mulder ever knew. Finally, pop-culture nerds have an
intellectual to call their own." -- Jonathan V. Last, senior writer
The Weekly Standard
"Cantor's latest book is a collection of wide-ranging essays that
brims with brilliant insights on particular movies and TV shows."
-- National Review
"Political theorists have much to gain from reading The Invisible
Hand in Popular Culture." -- Review of Politics
"The cause of freedom has rarely had as creative a defender as Paul
Cantor. To follow his thinking and writing is to be changed by
them. His outlook is romantic, intellectually robust, and new. With
this outlook, he finds the idea of freedom in the most inauspicious
places, not only in Shakespeare (his specialization) but also in
popular culture, of which he is an incredibly trenchant observer.
The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture is as astute an examination
of the idea of liberty as you will find anywhere in the history of
liberal literature, and one that resonates especially in our time."
-- Jeffrey Tucker, Laissez Faire Books
"The incomparable Cantor has blessed the libertarian movement with
a literary voice. Would that we ahd more Cantors to show us how
literature flowers when freedom flourishes." -- Independent
Review
"This is an exceptional romp through television and film from the
past seveal decades, and serves to entertain as much as to instruct
us that the world of entertainment contains many valuable lessons
in economics, liberty, and morality." -- Weekly Standard
"This sweeping, inclusive survey of American popular culture in the
20th and 21st centuries is a masterwork. Cantor offers thoughtful
readings, detailed analyses of the works in question, and an
authoritative overview of the ways in which pop and classical
culture mesh to create the fabric of contemporary American
consciousness." -- Choice Magazine
"With a deep knowledge of literature and philosophy as well as film
and TV, Cantor brings scholarship together with entertainment. He's
fun to read, and you can learn a few things, too." -- Milwaukee
Express
"Written in clear language for the curious layman, but carefully
footnoted for the scholar, Invisible Hand helps us look in a new
way at the images on the screen that undeniably have an enormous
effect on the viewer's notions of history, government, freedom, and
the human experience." -- LewRockwell.com
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