Michael Rogin – författare

In this major reconsideration of Herman Melville's life and work, Michael Rogin shows that Melville's novels are connected both to the important issues of his time and to the exploits of his patrician and politically prominent family.

The fear of the subversive has governed American politics, from the racial conflicts of the early republic to the Hollywood anti-Communism of Ronald Reagan. Political monsters - the Indian cannibal, the black rapist, the demon rum, the bomb-throwing anarchist, the many-tentacled Communist conspiracy, the agents of international terrorism - are familiar figures in the dream life that so often dominates American political consciousness. What are the meanings and sources of these demons? And why does the American political imagination conjure them up? Michael Rogin answers these questions by examining the American countersubversive tradition.

The tangled connections that have bound Jews to African Americans in popular culture and liberal politics are at the heart of Michael Rogin's arresting and unnerving book. Looking at films from "Birth of a Nation" to "Forrest Gump", Rogin explores blackface in Hollywood films as an aperture to broader issues: the nature of "white" identity in America, the role of race in transforming immigrants into "Americans", the common experiences of Jews and African Americans that made Jews key supporters in the fight for racial equality, and the social importance of popular culture. Rogin's forcefully argued study challenges us to confront the harsh truths behind the popularity of racial masquerade.