My son brought this book home as part of a school project and I absentmindedly picked it up and started reading. It really hooked me from the start and I ended up reading it cover to cover in just a couple of days.

The author has a great way of meandering from subject to subject so that the book encompasses much more than just facts about Graceland. It studies how the houses that we live in represent where we have come from and where we are going, not just as individuals but as a culture and a country.

The book also looks honestly at Elvis Presley's life, without wallowing in the uglier aspects of his life and death.

Elvis was the unique product of a very specific time and place; a cultural expression of that sweaty, hardscrabble slice of Mississippi River Delta biracial culture which has produced so much of the authentic in American music.
The singer's unusual and deep attachment to his context is well understood in this perceptive biography, whose author views and interprets Presley through his homes, from the shotgun shack in East Tupelo to the "Peckerwood Palace" of Graceland. Highly readable and of value to students of contemporary American culture, but committed Elvis fans will not be comforted by this unblinking examination of the King and his world.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

Truly great book on the myth of Elvis Presley and also about the history of the past in the United States. We can understand in a better way what Graceland truly mean to Elvis... A superficial time-line concerning his life is also a great source of informations about the man behind the star... Edith Robitaille from Quebec, Canada.

Karal Ann Martling tucks her mission in writing "As Seen On TV" in that last sentence of the next-to-last chapter of her fascinating book. She tours the 1950s' TV-raised images, from First Lady Mamie Eisenhower's dress closet to her husband's paintings to garish car in the garage, ready-made food in the kitchen, and herky-jerky TV images pointing to changed American culture and aestetic. Hers is a more entertaining, breezier read than recent books from, respectively, David Halberstam on the 1950s or historian Michael Kammen on American preference.(Marling shared time at Cornell with Kammen, thanking his students in her acknowledgements for "challenging lunchtime conversation.")

Marling merges era icons, fads, and seminal events more seamlessly into social statement than Halberstam did or Kammen attempted. Her understanding of cars evolving into social statements segues best into the image of Elvis Presley, the "King of Rock and Roll" for whom the "gorp"-covered Cadillac was chariot of choice. (she also credits Martin and Lewis with exposing the entertainment's dual sensibilities during early TV).

Marling also writes of home convenience from new appliances and quick dinners colliding with the rustic, more honorable life many felt had been replaced. This clash inspired and popularized Grandma Moses' idealized portraits of American country life, Walt Disney's scale model re-creation of small-town America at Disneyland (and on the accompanying TV program), and Betty Crocker's shorthand version of motherly mentoring through General Mills' best-selling cookbook. Marling's chapter on Walt Disney's inspirations for creating the park is among the book's most fascinating. But a chapter on "American Bandstand," should Marling have chosen to include it, may have tied even more loose ends together.

The book may also have done with some re-arrangement; the closing chapter accurately and humorously chronicles the 1959 Richard Nixon-Nikita Krushchev "kitchen debate." But its tale of form of function, argued by its most important leaders at the peak of Cold War hysteria, may have been more effective introducing Marling's tale. The book may then have received more social context by stating sooner Nixon's belief, according to Marling, in "style as a manifestation or a symbol of difference and, in difference, multiplicity - the possibility of choice - as...connecting idle consumer fetishism to ideology." This would also have more closely tied the 1950s' garish color imagery with its parallel, grainier black-and-white images (Nixon, the Cold War, and Joe McCarthy, a standout 50s figure seen on TV but not in this book.) Nonetheless, "As Seen On TV" is a fun, informative read for those wishing to understand the reasoning behind an era's unforgettable images.

Very interesting reading. It is amazing to actually see how television has changed American life. I can't even fathom how life would be today, without TV. A great read for all who are interested in American pop culture in the 1950s.

For those readers unfamiliar with Karal Ann Marling, this book is as good an introduction as any. A professor of Art History and American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Marling, in "George Washington Slept Here" gives us a well-researched and amusing account of how Americans have used the image of the "Father of our Country" for a variety of social, economic, and political purposes.

Washington has always been one of the most enigmatic of Revolutionary heroes and Presidents, which has rendered his image amenable to packaging and repackaging according to the needs of the times. His reputation for honesty, probity, and dignity (among other virtues) has appealed to Americans across the generations. We, as a culture, have placed him in an imaginary colonial past--simpler, less complicated--a past that we can look to, and find comfort in, as a palliative for our own hurried and complicated lives.

Marling takes us through the development of Washington the "icon", beginning in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. She shows us how our fascintation with the hero of Valley Forge helped to spur a general, wide-spread interest in things colonial--the Colonial Revival movement--that continues to this day (her book ends in the 1980s); witness the vast quantities of colonial revival furnishings, house designs, and other "artifacts" produced over the decades.

Apart from Washington's "influence" on the colonial revival, his image has been used to sell everything from soup to nuts to politicians, a phenomenon that Marling examines in amusing detail. Her analysis of Warren G. Harding's use of Washington iconography is wonderful, as is her examination of the symbolic use of Washington and the "colonial" by the artist Grant Wood.

In sum, for anyone interested in American popular culture and the way that we make use of the past, "George Washington Slept Here" should find space on your bookshelf.

This is a wonderful book for those Disney fans who want to know more about the history of the Disney Theme Parks. There are a lot interesting pictures; some never even seen. Very well detailed and interesting reading. All of those 'curious-types' should buy this book!

A look at the title, and even the opening, might lead one to think this book was written by and for academia. That is not true. You don't need to be an architect or engineer (either mechanical or social!) to enjoy this book. The photos of concept art make it worth the price of the book alone! One could happily treat this purely as a coffee table book. If you decide to read it, you will have to wade through the author's occasionally self-serving analysis, but that is not often. This is a quality book, based on an absolutely amazing traveling exhibit.

I bought this book and thought it was highly enjoyable. It never ceases to amaze me that for some reason, some folks tend to think that when Disney builds anything, they are trying to build things that are meant to be perfect. The last time I checked, Disney was in the business of building theme parks, not the Taj Mahal or Biltmore House. They are simply building things that are fun, period. This book does illustrate this quite well. The book has great art and the text is easy to read yet not insulting. Hey, if you like Disney or amusement parks or even really fun design/architecture, then check this book out. If you are just out to criticize etc., give us all a break and move on.

I guess my search for the perfect history of Christmas will trudge on. While containing some interesting facts (e.g., Washington Irving's mythical view of the English Christmas predated Dickens by 20 years), the organization of the book make it a real pain to read. I can't begin to express how much I dislike the chapter organization. Marling has laid things out by topic (e.g., Christmas cards, Santa Claus, gift-giving). As a 'history' of Christmas, this organization makes it an utter hassle to comprehend how things played out over time. It would have been much more effective and compelling to read if the book were chronological. That way, one could truly appreciate the development of the holiday in America, rather than have to piece things together after the fact.

... I must also take issue with the illustrations in the book. The few that are actually in the book are dreadfully reproduced black and white pictures. Instead of appearing festive, they are just depressing.

I thought this book would help me to really get into the Christmas spirit. Instead, I found myself wishing I'd saved the money to buy myself a Christmas CD or video.

If I had browsed through this book before buying it, I would have rejected it for these reasons: content is superficial, author's tone is smarty-pants academic as well as wordy,and the illustrations are poorly reproduced.

Marling has a way of exploring topics with a balance of intellectual curiosity and lightheartedness. Like the other books of hers I've read, she explores Christmas traditions (the book is organized by topics of Christmas, such as giftwrapping, or the tradition of giving cards) by tracing their development over time. In the process, some of our assumptions about where our traditions came from get shaken out to air. Fun, thought-provoking, and very much worth the read, as is her book _As Seen on TV_, which examines the pop culture of the 1950's.