pickabook books with huge discounts for everyone
pickabook books with huge discounts for everyone
Visit our new collection website www.collectionsforschool.co.uk
     
Email: Subscribe to news & offers:
Need assistance? Log In/Register


Item Details
Title: THE MIRTH OF NATIONS
By: Christie Davies (Editor)
Format: Hardback

List price: £110.00
Our price: £99.00
Discount:
10% off
You save: £11.00
ISBN 10: 0765800969
ISBN 13: 9780765800961
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-3 weeks.
 Delivery rates
Stock: Currently 0 available
Publisher: TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC
Pub. date: 31 May, 2002
Pages: 263
Description: A social and historical study of jokes told in the main English-speaking countries, and based on archival and other primary sources including old and rare joke books. It uses the comparative method to undermine existing theories of humour, rooted in notions of hostility conflict and superiority.
Synopsis: The Mirth of Nations is a social and historical study of jokes told in the principal English-speaking countries. It is based on use of archives and other primary sources, including old and rare joke books. Davies makes detailed comparisons between the humor of specific pairs of nations and ethnic and regional groups. In this way, he achieves an appreciation of the unique characteristics of the humor of each nation or group. A tightly argued book, The Mirth of Nations uses the comparative method to undermine existing theories of humor, which are rooted in notions of hostility, conflict, and superiority, and derive ultimately from Hobbes and Freud. Instead Davies argues that humor merely plays with aggression and with rule-breaking, and that the form this play takes is determined by social structures and intellectual traditions. It is not related to actual conflicts between groups. In particular, Davies convincingly argues that Jewish humor and jokes are neither uniquely nor overwhelmingly self-mocking as many writers since Freud have suggested.Rather Jewish jokes, like Scottish humor and jokes are the product of a strong cultural tradition of analytical thinking and intelligent self-awareness. The volume shows that the forty-year popularity of the Polish joke cycle in America was not a product of any special negative feeling towards Poles. Jokes are not serious and are not a form of determined aggression against others or against one's own group. The Mirth of Nations is readable as well as revisionist. It is written with great clarity and puts forward difficult and complex arguments without jargon in an accessible manner. Its rich use of examples of all kinds of humor entertains the reader, who will enjoy a great variety of jokes while being enlightened by the author's careful explanations of why particular sets of jokes exist and are immensely popular. The book will appeal to general readers as well as those in cultural studies.
Publication: UK
Imprint: Transaction Publishers
Returns: Returnable
Some other items by this author:

TOP SELLERS IN THIS CATEGORY
The Book of Tea (Paperback)
Penguin Books Ltd
Our Price : £2.92
more details
The Naughty Little Book of Gaelic (Paperback)
Cape Breton University Press
Our Price : £9.29
more details
The English Year (Paperback)
Penguin Books Ltd
Our Price : £12.40
more details
Dancing in the Streets (Paperback)
Granta Books
Our Price : £8.02
more details
The Stations of the Sun (Paperback)
Oxford University Press
Our Price : £12.40
more details
BROWSE FOR BOOKS IN RELATED CATEGORIES
 SOCIAL SCIENCES
 sociology, social studies
 social institutions
 customs & folklore
 customs


Information provided by www.pickabook.co.uk
SHOPPING BASKET
  
Your basket is empty
  Total Items: 0
 

NEW
World’s Worst Superheroes GET READY FOR SOME SUPERSIZED FUN!
add to basket





New
No Cheese, Please! A fun picture book for children with food allergies - full of friendship and super-cute characters!Little Mo the mouse is having a birthday party.
add to basket

New
My Brother Is a Superhero Luke is massively annoyed about this, but when Zack is kidnapped by his arch-nemesis, Luke and his friends have only five days to find him and save the world...
add to basket


Picture Book
Animal Actions: Snap Like a Crab
By:
The first title in a new preschool series from Guilherme Karsten.
add to basket