This series of eight provocative essays examines why Americans have a penchant for going to extremes in their arts, popular culture, politics, social movements, and other aspects of life. Robert Schmuhl considers historical examples (the hunting of the buffalo in the West, Prohibition, business ventures in the Gilded Age) but concentrates on contemporary subjects, including the emphasis on what shocks the audience as entertainment today, tensions among specific groups, the decline of private life, and the excesses of news media coverage in the O. J. Simpson and Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky stories.
