Tony Soprano's America: Gangsters, Guns, and Money

Widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time, The Sopranos is also considered one of the most significant achievements in contemporary American culture. IThe series spearheaded the launch of a new wave of quality programming that has transformed the way people watch, experience, and talk about television. By chronicling the life and crimes of a New Jersey mobster, his family, and his cronies, The Sopranos examines deep themes at the heart of American life, particularly the country’s seedy underbelly. In Tony Soprano’s America: Gangsters, Guns, and Money, M. Keith Booker and Isra Daraiseh explore the central role of the series in American cultural history. While examining the elements that account for the show’s popularity and critical acclaim, the authors also contend that The Sopranos revolutionized the way audiences viewed television in general and cable programming as well. This book demonstrates how a show focused on an ethnic antihero somehow reflected common themes of contemporary American life, including ethnicity, class, capitalism, therapy, and family dynamics. Providing a sophisticated yet accessible account of the groundbreaking series—a show that rivals film and literature for its beauty and stunning characterization of modern life—this book engages the reader with ideas central to the American experience. Tony Soprano’s America brings to life this profound television program in ways that will entertain, engage, and perhaps even challenge longtime viewers and critics.

About the Author :
M. Keith Booker is professor of English in comparative literature and cultural studies at the University of Arkansas. He has written or edited more than forty books on literature and popular culture, including Historical Dictionary of American Cinema (2011). Coeditor of the Cultural History of Television series for Rowman & Littlefield, Booker is also the coauthor of Mad Men: A Cultural History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). Isra Daraiseh holds a doctorate in comparative literature and cultural studies. Her varied research interests include nineteenth-century British and Russian literature, as well as the intersection of American and Middle Eastern popular culture.

Review :
The two authors of Tony Soprano’s America, while referring to innumerable quotations, situations and plots of the series, cover an astoundingly wide field of topics. In fifteen subdivisions, we learn about the series’ treatment of postmodernity, its meaning for TV as a genre, popular culture, nostalgia (particularly the 1950s as the golden age of mob activity), capitalism, the value and (mostly) decline of values, cultural roots, ethnicity and religion, the gangster film tradition, the meaning of family ties and family structures, comedy, religion, psychotherapy, the American class system, masculinity, and naturally the history of organized crime in the US. Accordingly, there are many, many things and conclusions that fall into place after reading Tony Soprano’s America, presented in a strictly non-academic style. Just the same, it provides good entertainment and will probably urge readers to watch the entire saga again, this time with attention to detail. This ambitious work, tailored for students of The Sopranos, provides a plethora of interesting notions about the series as a centerpiece of American cultural history, and in so doing could inspire others toward a further and fuller development of its individual topics.