Feast of Excess: A Cultural History of the New Sensibility

Cotkin (emeritus, history, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo; Existential America) goes above and beyond in this marvelously well-crafted cultural history of the new sensibility, a mostly midcentury U.S. movement defined mainly by its celebration of excess, unconventionality, and general theatricality. Taking as his scope the extended period of 1952 through 1974, Cotkin organizes his detailed history into 23 enlightening chapters, each corresponding to one year and one influential cultural creator, from composer John Cage (1952) to performance artist Chris Burden (1974). Through these "vignettes" Cotkin balances the various idiosyncrasies of new sensibility artists with the aesthetic patterns that tie them and the movement together, including obsessions with liberation, violence, pleasure, and madness. By the book's conclusion, readers are left with a keen appreciation for the artistry of excess, even as they may yearn for a clearer thesis from Cotkin on the hinted relationship between the artistic uprising and the 21st-century culture of excess entertainment.