Politics at the Margin
Historical Studies of Public Expression outside the Mainstream

This book analyses how oppressed citizens - women, African Americans, and political radicals - create their own forms of public expression.

Susan Herbst (Author)

9780521461849, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 August 1994

244 pages, 12 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.53 kg

"Herbst nicely integrates oral history with close textual readings of important political discourse to offer a thought-provoking examination of these case studies. this work is important to scholars interested in cross-disciplinary work in history, political science, and communication studies." Dayle C. Hardy-Short, Journal of American History

This book explores how a variety of historically marginalised groups create their own 'public spheres', parallel to the mainstream public arena. Since such groups have been excluded from conventional public discourse and activity, they build their own infrastructures for opinion formation and expression. The book draws upon theory in sociology, philosophy, political science, and communications in order to understand communication patterns among the politically marginal at different points in history. Three diverse historical case studies (female-operated salons of eighteenth-century Paris, the black press of the 1930s, and the creation of The Masses), and a contemporary analysis of the Libertarian Party, illuminate the experiences of those who live on the fringe of the public sphere. Through synthesis of existing scholarship, and original archival research, Politics at the Margin demonstrates the centrality of political communication to the study of social action.

INTRODUCTION
1. Politics, expression, and marginality
2. Backchannels of communication: salonnières of the French Enlightenment
3. Race discrimination, mass media, and public expression: Chicago, 1934–60
4. Political marginality and communication in Greenwich village, 1911–18
5. Contemporary outsiders: the Libertarians
Conclusion, Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Political activism [JPW]