Overview

A crucial resource that studies the impact of dystopian works on American society, this book examines ways in which they reflect our deep and persistent fears about environmental calamities, authoritarian governments, invasive technologies, and human weakness. Through its wide survey of dystopian works in numerous forms and genres, this book encourages readers to connect with these works of fiction and understand how the catastrophically grim or disquieting worlds they portray offer insights into our own current situation. In addition to providing more than 150 encyclopedia articles on a large and representative sample of dystopian/apocalyptic narratives in fiction, film, television, and video games (including popular works that often escape critical inquiry), Dystopian States of America features a suite of critical essays on five themes - war, pandemics, totalitarianism, environmental calamity, and technological overreach - that serve as the foundation for most dystopian worlds of the imagination. These offerings complement one another, enabling readers to explore dystopian conceptions of America and the world from multiple perspectives and vantage points.

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Reviews

""This disturbing catalog of impending dystopia and apocalypse will be used heavily in academic libraries that support literature and film studies and in large public libraries."" --Booklist ""Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates and general readers."" --Choice

Author Information

Matthew B. Hill, PhD, is Professor of English in the Humanities Department at Coppin State University, USA. His work focuses on 20th- and 21st-century warfare in literature, film, and popular culture. He is the author of Unconventional Warriors: The Fantasy of the American Resistance Fighter in Film and Television (2018). He is also the co-editor of The War on Terror and American Popular Culture (2009). His essays have appeared in War, Literature, and the Arts, The Mid-Atlantic Almanack, The Journal of Popular Culture, Extrapolation, and The Journal of American Culture.

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