The 1990s (American Popular Culture Through History)
Grade 9 Up–Marred by weak writing, this history seems anxious to say something but never quite gets there. The two sections cover "Life and Youth" and "Popular Culture" (which looks at everything from advertising to the visual arts). The book ends with a time line and a helpful list of products and their costs. While there is useful material here, much of it gets lost in the meandering and sloppy writing. Candace Bergen is referred to as Candace Bergman, and the WNBA receives little more than an aside in the approximately 350 words devoted to women in sports. Too verbose to be a ready-reference title, but too bland and lacking in analysis to be of any value as a history, this awkward hybrid lumbers along guaranteed to alienate even the most resolute researchers. Sara and Tom Pendergast'sBowling, Beatniks, and Bell-bottoms(UXL, 2002) is more inclusive, covering the entire 20th century; although the focus in Tandy McConnell'sAmerican Decades: 1990-1999(Gale, 2000) isn't on popular culture, its format is better suited to student research.–Herman Sutter, Saint Agnes Academy, Houston, TXCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.