Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style
"Refreshingly skeptical of the intellectual habit of reducing all cultural expression to the political."—Wall Street Journal"Peiss is a creative and brilliant scholar and her book is a much-welcomed addition to the body of scholarship dedicated to unlocking the riddle of the zoot."—American Historical Review"Thorough, well-researched, and illuminating."—PopMatters"An important and valuable book. The breadth of research upon which it is based and Peiss's determination to question conventional assumptions considerably enrich our understanding of the zoot."—Journal of American Studies"Kathy Peiss brilliantly unravels the many meanings of the zoot suit while sustaining the aesthetic pleasure of its creation in the complex cultural fabric of American life.Zoot Suitis a cultural history laced with the eye of ethnography, showing how an original African American sartorial style carried substantial symbolic power into the lives of Mexican Americanpachucos suaves, Jewish tailor trumpeters, and all who would wear 'the Drape' as a statement of hipness."—Nick Spitzer, producer and host ofAmerican Routes"Zoot Suitis a sophisticated, independent minded, and valuable book; there should be more work like it in the field. Peiss's principled attention to evidence, her nuanced argument, and her willingness to question conventional assumptions about the meaning of popular forms all go a long way toward re-grounding American Studies in the lived world."—Carlo Rotella, author ofGood With Their Hands: Boxers, Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt