Trick or treat : a history of Halloween /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Halloween has spread around the world, yet its associations with death and the supernatural as well as its inevitable commercialization have made it one of our most puzzling holidays. How did it become what it is today?



Trick or Treat is the first book both to examine the origins and history of Halloween and to explore in depth its current global popularity. Festivals like the Celtic Samhain and Catholic All Souls' Day have blended to produce the modern Halloween, which has been reborn with new customs in America--but there are also related but independent holidays, especially Mexico's Day of the Dead. Lisa Morton lifts the cobwebs off everything from the explosion in popularity of haunted attractions to the impact of events like the global economic recession, as well as the effect Halloween has had on popular culture through literary works, films, and television series.



Taking us on a journey from the spectacular to the macabre, this book is a treat for anyone who wants to peep behind the mask to see the real past and present of this ever more popular holiday.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Morton offers the first comprehensive history of the "misunderstood festival" of Halloween. She playfully sets the record straight on the origins of Halloween, explores its migration from the Old World to the New and back again, discusses the role of consumer culture in establishing supposedly ancient traditions, and concludes with an observation that Halloween's ever-changing nature has allowed it to be adapted for countless purposes around the globe. Using a wide variety of written and visual sources, Morton sees Halloween as a lens through which to look at global history. Key topics include mass production (candy corn); gender studies (sexy, pin-up style costumes for women that appeared during WW II); race (the Ku Klux Klan's 1921 insistence before Congress that their white uniforms were innocent, Halloween-like costumes); and global appropriation of traditions (the Japanese integration of "cosplay"--"costume play"--into the holiday). This book is an excellent example of the scholarship on holidays as a means of accessing many facets of history (see Joe Perry, Christmas in Germany: A Cultural History, 2010). Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. B. Blessing University of Vienna

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Lisa Morton is an award-winning author and widely acknowledged as one of the world's leading authorities on Halloween. Her books include Ghosts: A Haunted History , also published by Reaktion Books, A Halloween Anthology: Literary and Historical Writings Over the Centuries , and The Halloween Encyclopedia . She lives in Los Angeles, California.