"Celebrity Culture and the American Dream is an engaging study of the development of celebrity culture during the past century and a great application of sociological concepts like social mobility and exploration of the also always-interesting idea of the "American Dream." The author provides a very effective and innovative means of conveying what can often be "dry" and "academic" sociological concepts (i.e., social mobility) through something students are inherently interested in, i.e., popular culture and celebrity. What strikes me especially about the book is the author's ability to make sociology personal. The author'e(tm)s consistent focus on gender and women throughout the work is also a great plus.

Highly recommended for sociology courses focussing on media and or culture."'e"Steve Sherwood, Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles  ". a good book to add to an introduction to sociology course if you want to give your students a good sense of how sociology analyzes culture and media.There is a lot in the book and Sternheimer does a good job of weaving together hard sociological data on stratification, inequalities, wage and labor trends to the narrative promoted by the celebrity culture along with changes in the structure and power relations in the industry itself. The book is an easy read with a lot of illustrations from celebrity magazines and so is very appropriate for undergraduate audiences."'e"Global Sociology "Karen Sternheimer'e(tm)s readable and well-written book is an interpretation of some 600 popular American film magazines from the early 1900s to the present day. Sterinheimer argues that the study of these magazines is far from trivial because of what they reveal abou the shared fantasies of the American Dream and more precisely ideas about class mobility and the good society." 'e"Nick Stevenson, University of Nottingham, U.

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