American Scary by Jeremy Dauber

In the vast landscape of American cultural history, few genres have been as persistent and influential as horror. In his meticulously researched and engaging book “American Scary,” renowned cultural historian Jeremy Dauber takes readers on an enthralling journey through America’s complex relationship with fear. Published in 2023, this groundbreaking work examines how horror has pervaded American culture from the nation’s earliest days through contemporary times, offering readers both a scholarly analysis and an accessible narrative. At Readlogy, we’ve analyzed this seminal work to bring you an in-depth examination of how Dauber traces horror’s evolution across literature, film, television, comics, and digital media, revealing horror as not just a genre but a crucial lens through which Americans process their collective anxieties, traumas, and social realities.

What Is “American Scary” About? A Comprehensive Overview

“American Scary” is fundamentally a cultural history that examines horror as an integral part of America’s identity and national consciousness. The book traces horror’s evolution from colonial-era writings through to contemporary digital media, demonstrating how the genre has consistently reflected and responded to America’s deepest fears and anxieties. Dauber provides a chronological yet thematic exploration that connects horror narratives to specific historical contexts, arguing that American horror is uniquely positioned to illuminate the nation’s psychological underpinnings.

The work stands out for its remarkable breadth, covering over 300 years of cultural history while maintaining analytical depth. Dauber examines traditional horror media like Gothic literature, slasher films, and haunted house tales, but also explores less obvious manifestations in political discourse, religious sermons, and journalistic accounts. Through this comprehensive approach, he reveals horror as a persistent thread in America’s cultural fabric rather than merely a niche entertainment category.

What makes this book particularly valuable is Dauber’s ability to connect horror tropes with specific American historical traumas and social dynamics. From Puritan fears of wilderness and damnation to Cold War anxieties about invasion and contamination, to contemporary concerns about technology and identity, “American Scary” shows how horror has been both a reflection of and response to the American experience. This perspective elevates the book from mere genre study to an essential cultural history.

Let’s delve deeper into the book’s structure and main arguments to understand how Dauber constructs this fascinating cultural narrative.

The Book’s Structure and Organization

“American Scary” is organized into chronological chapters that also maintain thematic coherence. This structure allows Dauber to trace horror’s evolution while making connections across different periods, demonstrating continuities and disruptions in how Americans have experienced and expressed fear.

The book is divided into eight comprehensive chapters:

1. Colonial Terrors: Examines early American horror in Puritan writings, captivity narratives, and witch trial accounts
2. Gothic Republic: Explores the development of distinctly American Gothic literature in the new nation
3. Horrific Entertainment: Chronicles the commercialization of horror through dime novels, pulp magazines, and early film
4. Modern Monsters: Analyzes horror’s transformation during industrialization and mass media
5. Cold War Nightmares: Examines post-WWII horror as an expression of atomic anxiety and conformity
6. Splatter Nation: Investigates the explosion of graphic horror in the 1970s-80s amid social upheaval
7. Millennial Dread: Explores horror at the turn of the century as expressing technological and identity anxieties
8. Digital Hauntings: Analyzes contemporary horror in the age of social media, streaming, and pandemic fears

Each chapter combines media analysis, historical context, and theoretical frameworks, creating a multidimensional picture of how horror functions within American society. Dauber employs a conversational yet scholarly tone, making complex ideas accessible without sacrificing intellectual rigor.

The book includes extensive endnotes, a comprehensive bibliography, and an index that makes it valuable for both casual readers and scholars. Several black-and-white images illustrate key works discussed, though the limited number of illustrations is one minor drawback in an otherwise excellent production.

Key Arguments and Themes

Dauber advances several interconnected arguments throughout “American Scary” that help readers understand horror’s cultural significance:

1. Horror as National Identity: Dauber contends that horror has been fundamental to American self-definition since the colonial period. Unlike European horror traditions that often look backward to medieval and ancient fears, American horror frequently engages with questions of national purpose and identity.

2. Reflection of Social Anxieties: The book demonstrates how horror narratives have consistently reflected America’s most pressing social concerns—from racial tensions and class conflicts to gender dynamics and technological change.

3. Cultural Processing: Perhaps most importantly, Dauber argues that horror functions as a cultural mechanism for processing collective trauma and anxiety. Horror narratives allow Americans to confront fears in controlled environments, offering catharsis and sometimes resolution.

4. Commercial Evolution: The book traces how horror evolved from religious warnings and moral tales to commercial entertainment, showing how market forces have shaped the genre’s development.

5. Democratic Medium: Dauber highlights horror’s accessibility across social strata, positioning it as one of America’s most democratic cultural forms despite (or perhaps because of) its often lowbrow reputation.

These arguments are supported by detailed analysis of specific works, historical contextualizing, and engagement with cultural theory, creating a convincing portrait of horror as central to American cultural experience rather than peripheral to it.

As the experts at Readlogy have found, Dauber’s approach provides valuable insights not just for horror enthusiasts but for anyone interested in understanding American culture more deeply.

Who Is Jeremy Dauber? Understanding the Author’s Background

Jeremy Dauber is uniquely positioned to author “American Scary” based on his extensive academic credentials and previous publications. As a professor of American Studies and Jewish Literature at Columbia University, Dauber brings scholarly rigor to popular culture analysis, a combination that gives “American Scary” its distinctive blend of accessibility and depth.

Dauber earned his doctorate from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and has established himself as one of America’s foremost cultural historians. His previous works demonstrate a pattern of examining seemingly marginal cultural forms to reveal their central importance. These include “Jewish Comedy: A Serious History” (2017), which traced Jewish humor across millennia; “American Comics: A History” (2021), which provided a comprehensive account of comics as a distinctly American art form; and “The Comic Book History of Animation” (2020), co-authored with Fred Van Lente.

What distinguishes Dauber as a cultural historian is his ability to balance scholarly analysis with engaging storytelling. Unlike academics who might render cultural history in dense, jargon-heavy prose, Dauber writes with clarity and wit that makes complex ideas accessible to general readers. This approach perfectly suits “American Scary,” where the material demands both rigorous analysis and narrative engagement.

Dauber’s previous work on American popular culture provides essential context for “American Scary.” His extensive research on comics and animation gave him insight into how visual storytelling conveys cultural anxieties, while his work on Jewish comedy demonstrated his ability to trace cultural forms across diverse media and historical periods. These skills are evident throughout “American Scary,” where Dauber moves fluidly between analyzing colonial sermons, nineteenth-century literature, mid-century films, and contemporary digital narratives.

Beyond his scholarly credentials, Dauber brings a genuine appreciation for horror as a genre, avoiding the common academic pitfall of treating popular culture with condescension. This combination of scholarly rigor and genuine enthusiasm makes “American Scary” both informative and enjoyable to read, regardless of the reader’s previous knowledge of horror or cultural theory.

Dauber’s Methodology and Research Approach

In “American Scary,” Dauber employs a multidisciplinary methodology that combines:

• Close textual analysis: Detailed examination of specific horror works
• Historical contextualization: Placing these works within their socio-political settings
• Media studies approaches: Understanding how different media shapes horror’s expression
• Cultural theory: Employing concepts from psychology, sociology, and philosophy to interpret horror’s functions

This methodological range allows Dauber to create a comprehensive picture of horror’s cultural significance. His research draws on primary sources including literary texts, films, television shows, comic books, and digital media, as well as historical documents, critical reviews, and creator interviews.

The book’s extensive endnotes and bibliography reveal the depth of Dauber’s research, encompassing everything from Puritan sermons and Gothic novels to underground comics and social media phenomena. This scholarly foundation gives “American Scary” credibility while Dauber’s engaging writing style makes the material accessible to non-academic readers.

How Does “American Scary” Trace Horror’s Origins in American Culture?

“American Scary” meticulously traces horror’s roots in American culture to the Puritan era, revealing that fear has been woven into the national consciousness from its earliest beginnings. Dauber compellingly argues that American horror began not with fiction but with religious sermons, captivity narratives, and accounts of supernatural occurrences that were presented as factual. The earliest American horror, according to Dauber, was inseparable from religious experience and served explicitly didactic purposes.

The book identifies several formative influences that shaped distinctly American horror:

1. Puritan sermonic tradition: Ministers like Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards used vivid, terrifying imagery to illustrate spiritual dangers, with Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741) serving as a prototype for horror rhetoric with its visceral descriptions of divine punishment.

2. Captivity narratives: Accounts of colonists captured by Native Americans, like Mary Rowlandson’s narrative (1682), established enduring patterns of “othering” and wilderness fear that would influence American horror for centuries.

3. Witch trial accounts: The Salem witch trials generated documents that blended legal procedure with supernatural horror, creating a template for horror’s ability to comment on social hysteria.

4. Early Gothic adaptations: Charles Brockden Brown’s novels, particularly “Wieland” (1798), adapted European Gothic conventions to American settings, replacing medieval castles with frontier cabins and aristocratic villains with republican citizens.

Dauber demonstrates how these early manifestations established enduring patterns in American horror:

• Wilderness as threat: The untamed American landscape as a source of danger and monstrosity
• Religious anxiety: Fear of damnation and divine punishment
• Boundary concerns: Horror emerging at points where civilization meets wilderness, rationality meets superstition, or self meets other
• Documentary approach: The presentation of supernatural events within frameworks of testimony and evidence

Through detailed analysis of these early forms, Dauber shows that even before horror existed as a recognized genre, Americans were using narratives of fear to process their experiences of settlement, nation-building, and identity formation. This historical foundation is crucial for understanding how later horror forms evolved.

The Evolution of Gothic Literature in America

Building on these foundations, Dauber traces how the European Gothic tradition was transformed in American soil during the early republic and antebellum periods. He gives particular attention to how writers like Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne developed distinctly American Gothic approaches.

The book identifies several key developments:

• Washington Irving’s regional ghost stories established American folklore as a horror source while using supernatural tales to comment on national identity following the Revolutionary War
• Edgar Allan Poe’s psychological horror shifted focus from external threats to the horrors of the mind, establishing patterns of unreliable narration and psychological fragmentation that would influence both literature and film
• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s moral Gothic used horror elements to explore America’s Puritan legacy and historical sins, particularly in works like “The House of the Seven Gables” (1851)
• The emergence of female Gothic writers like Louisa May Alcott (writing under pseudonyms) who used horror to explore domestic confinement and gender expectations

Dauber persuasively argues that these literary developments were not merely aesthetic choices but responses to the young nation’s unique historical situation. American Gothic differed from its European counterparts by focusing less on aristocratic decadence and more on the psychological and moral consequences of American democracy, expansion, and historical amnesia.

By establishing this literary evolution, “American Scary” provides essential context for understanding how American horror developed distinct characteristics that would persist even as the genre expanded into new media forms in the twentieth century.

What Media Forms Does “American Scary” Analyze?

“American Scary” stands out for its comprehensive analysis of horror across multiple media forms, demonstrating how the genre’s expression has evolved with changing technologies while maintaining thematic continuities. Dauber’s cross-media approach reveals horror as a persistent cultural force that adapts to new platforms while addressing enduring American anxieties.

The book provides detailed analysis of:

Literature and Print Media

• Gothic novels and short stories: From Charles Brockden Brown through contemporary writers like Stephen King and Carmen Maria Machado
• Pulp magazines: The crucial role of publications like “Weird Tales” in democratizing horror
• Comic books: Horror comics of the 1950s that led to industry censorship, underground comix, and contemporary graphic novels
• True crime narratives: The blurring of fact and fiction in accounts of real horrors

Visual and Performance Media

• Early theatrical presentations: From traveling shows featuring “freaks” to Grand Guignol adaptations
• Film: Comprehensive coverage from early silent films through Universal monster movies, Hammer Horror, independent exploitation films, to contemporary art-house horror
• Television: Analysis of horror anthology series, made-for-TV movies, and contemporary streaming series
• Video games: Discussion of how interactive media creates new forms of horror experience

Digital and Emerging Media

• Internet horror: Examination of creepypasta, Reddit threads, and collaborative horror narratives
• Social media horror: Analysis of how platforms like TikTok and YouTube have generated new horror forms
• Virtual reality: Discussion of immersive horror experiences and their psychological effects

Dauber’s analysis of each medium goes beyond mere description to examine how technical affordances shape horror’s expression. For example, he discusses how film’s visual capacity expanded horror’s sensory impact, how television brought horror into domestic spaces, and how digital media has created new forms of participatory horror.

The book is particularly strong in tracing how horror motifs migrate across media forms. Dauber shows how the “found footage” technique evolved from literary hoaxes to films like “The Blair Witch Project” (1999) to digital ARGs (alternate reality games), demonstrating that media evolution doesn’t simply replace older forms but builds upon them.

Case Study: Horror in American Cinema

One of the book’s most compelling sections examines American horror cinema as a barometer for national anxieties. Dauber identifies several key periods:

1. Silent Era (1890s-1920s): Early cinema used horror for technological spectacle and moral lessons
2. Universal Monsters (1930s-1940s): Depression-era anxieties manifested in sympathetic monsters representing the outsider
3. Cold War Horror (1950s-1960s): Invasion narratives and body horror reflecting atomic anxieties and conformity pressures
4. New American Horror (1970s): Vietnam-era horror turned to graphic violence, distrust of authority, and familial breakdown
5. Slasher Boom (1980s): Commodification of horror reflecting Reagan-era consumerism and sexual politics
6. Postmodern Horror (1990s): Self-referential horror examining the genre’s own conventions
7. Post-9/11 Horror (2000s): Torture porn and found footage responding to terrorism anxieties and surveillance culture
8. Social Horror (2010s-present): Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, and others using horror to examine identity politics and social divisions

Through detailed discussion of films from “Nosferatu” (1922) to “Get Out” (2017), Dauber demonstrates how American cinema has used horror to process collective traumas and social tensions. This analysis is one of the book’s strongest contributions, showing how a supposedly escapist genre has consistently engaged with America’s most pressing realities.

As noted by critics at Readlogy, Dauber’s expansive media approach makes “American Scary” valuable not just as horror criticism but as media history, showing how Americans have used evolving technologies to express their deepest fears.

How Does “American Scary” Connect Horror to American History?

One of “American Scary’s” most significant contributions is its meticulous mapping of horror narratives onto specific historical contexts, demonstrating how the genre has consistently responded to national crises, social transformations, and cultural anxieties. Dauber shows that far from being escapist entertainment, horror has frequently served as a means for Americans to process historical trauma and social change.

The book traces several key historical periods and their corresponding horror manifestations:

Colonial and Revolutionary Period (1600s-1700s)

• Puritan horror: Fear of wilderness, divine punishment, and Indigenous peoples
• Revolutionary gothic: Anxieties about the new republic’s stability and identity
• Historical relationship to horror: Use of supernatural elements to process the uncertainties of colonization and nation-building

Nineteenth Century Transformations

• Antebellum gothic: Horror reflecting tensions over slavery, expansion, and industrialization
• Civil War horror: Trauma narratives using supernatural elements to process national bloodshed
• Gilded Age anxieties: Horror reflecting class divisions, immigration fears, and rapid urbanization

Early Twentieth Century (1900-1945)

• Progressive Era horror: Scientific horror reflecting tensions between tradition and modernization
• Great Depression monsters: Universal horror films as metaphors for economic collapse and social dislocation
• World War II horror: Processing wartime trauma through narratives of monstrous transformation

Cold War Era (1945-1989)

• Atomic horror: Mutation narratives reflecting nuclear anxieties
• Invasion narratives: Horror reflecting fear of communism and cultural homogenization
• 1960s-70s upheaval: Horror turning to graphic violence and familial breakdown during social transformation
• Reagan-era horror: Slasher films reflecting consumerism, sexual politics, and moral backlash

Contemporary Period (1990-Present)

• Post-Cold War uncertainty: Horror exploring identity fragmentation and technological anxiety
• Post-9/11 trauma: Torture porn and found footage reflecting terrorism fears and surveillance culture
• Economic crisis horror: Post-2008 narratives of housing insecurity and economic monstrosity
• Pandemic horror: Recent works processing COVID-19 anxieties and isolation

Dauber’s historical approach is particularly valuable in revealing how horror has processed America’s racial history. He traces a line from early captivity narratives that demonized Indigenous peoples through minstrel-inspired horror performances, lynching photography (which he rightly identifies as a form of horror production), and civil rights-era horror films to contemporary works by creators like Jordan Peele that explicitly examine racial terror.

Case Study: Horror and American Politics

A particularly insightful section examines how horror tropes have pervaded American political discourse. Dauber shows how political rhetoric has employed horror frameworks throughout American history:

• Early republic fears of monarchy returning like a revenant
• Abolitionist descriptions of slavery’s horrors using Gothic conventions
• Anti-immigration rhetoric employing monstrous and contamination metaphors
• Cold War political discourse framing communism as a spreading contagion
• Modern campaign advertisements using horror techniques to create fear of opponents

This analysis demonstrates how horror functions not just as entertainment but as a rhetorical framework through which Americans understand political threats. By examining horror’s role in political communication, Dauber elevates the genre from mere entertainment to an essential lens for understanding American political psychology.

Through these historical connections, “American Scary” makes a convincing case that horror has functioned as a crucial cultural mechanism for processing collective experiences throughout American history. Rather than viewing horror as a reflection of timeless psychological fears, Dauber shows how the genre has continually evolved to address specific historical circumstances, making it an invaluable resource for understanding American history itself.

What Are the Major Themes in “American Scary”?

“American Scary” identifies several recurring thematic concerns that have dominated American horror across different periods and media forms. Dauber’s thematic analysis reveals how horror has consistently engaged with fundamental tensions in American society and national identity. These themes provide a framework for understanding horror not just as entertainment but as cultural expression dealing with America’s deepest contradictions.

The Wilderness and Frontier

Dauber traces America’s ambivalent relationship with the natural world as a persistent horror theme from colonial times to the present. He identifies several manifestations:

• Puritan wilderness fear: Early horror depicting nature as the devil’s domain
• Frontier gothic: 19th-century narratives about the psychological effects of isolation
• Backwoods horror: Films like “Deliverance” (1972) and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974) depicting rural spaces as sites of degeneracy
• Eco-horror: Contemporary works addressing environmental anxiety and nature’s revenge

This thematic thread reveals how American horror has consistently returned to the nation’s founding trauma—the violent displacement of Indigenous peoples and transformation of wilderness into property—reframing this historical process as supernatural terror.

Race and “The Other”

The book provides a nuanced analysis of how horror has both reinforced and challenged racial hierarchies throughout American history:

• Indigenous demonization: Early horror depicting Native Americans as demonic threats
• Slavery’s horror: Both pro- and anti-slavery narratives employing horror techniques
• Immigration anxiety: Turn-of-century horror reflecting fears of racial “contamination”
• Racial inversion: “Invasion” narratives expressing white fears of demographic change
• Civil rights era horror: Films like “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) using horror to comment on racial violence
• Contemporary racial horror: Works by creators like Jordan Peele using horror to examine persistent racial trauma

Dauber’s analysis shows how American horror has often processed racial anxiety, sometimes reinforcing dominant prejudices but increasingly functioning as a tool for examining and critiquing America’s racial history.

Technology and Progress

The book examines America’s complex relationship with technological advancement as expressed through horror:

• Scientific horror: 19th-century narratives like “Frankenstein” (adapted into American contexts) examining the moral limits of progress
• Industrial body horror: Early 20th-century narratives reflecting anxieties about mechanization
• Atomic mutation: Cold War horror expressing nuclear fears
• Media horror: Works like “Videodrome” (1983) examining television’s psychological effects
• Digital horror: Contemporary narratives addressing internet anxiety, surveillance, and artificial intelligence

This thematic analysis reveals how horror has consistently served as a forum for processing the psychological and social impacts of technological change, expressing both America’s technological utopianism and its deep technophobia.

The American Family

Dauber identifies the family as a central site of American horror, reflecting broader anxieties about social stability:

• Puritan family horror: Early narratives of possession and influence threatening the family unit
• 19th-century domestic gothic: Horror examining patriarchal control and family secrets
• Mid-century family invasion: Cold War narratives of outside forces threatening domestic stability
• 1970s family breakdown: Horror reflecting post-Vietnam familial disintegration
• Contemporary family trauma: Works like “Hereditary” (2018) examining intergenerational trauma

This analysis shows how American horror has consistently used the family as a microcosm for examining broader social anxieties, reflecting changing gender roles, parental anxieties, and intergenerational conflicts.

American Exceptionalism and National Identity

Perhaps most importantly, Dauber examines how horror has engaged with American exceptionalism and national mythology:

• Horror of revolutionary failure: Early republic anxieties about the democratic experiment
• Historical hauntings: 19th-century narratives examining America’s violent past
• Cold War identity horror: Narratives of body-snatching reflecting fears of conformity and loss of individuality
• Vietnam-era national horror: Films reflecting disillusionment with American innocence
• Post-9/11 exceptionalism critique: Horror examining American vulnerability and moral compromise

Throughout these thematic explorations, Dauber demonstrates how horror has served as a crucial vehicle for Americans to examine their national mythology, often revealing the violence, exclusion, and contradiction underlying American exceptionalist narratives.

These thematic analyses collectively demonstrate how horror has functioned as a vital cultural forum for processing American identity formation, social transformation, and historical trauma. Rather than viewing horror as merely reflecting universal psychological fears, Dauber shows how the genre has engaged with specifically American anxieties throughout the nation’s history.

How Does “American Scary” Analyze Horror’s Cultural Functions?

Beyond tracing horror’s historical development and thematic concerns, “American Scary” provides a sophisticated analysis of how horror functions within American culture. Dauber identifies several key cultural functions that explain horror’s persistence and popularity despite (or perhaps because of) its often marginalized status.

Psychological Processing

Dauber draws on psychological theory to explain horror’s persistent appeal:

• Catharsis function: Horror as a controlled environment for experiencing and releasing fear
• Trauma processing: Horror narratives as symbolic representations of actual traumas
• Taboo exploration: Horror as a space for examining forbidden thoughts and desires
• Cognitive rehearsal: Horror as mental preparation for actual threats and disasters

The book convincingly argues that horror serves crucial psychological functions by allowing audiences to process anxieties in controlled environments. Dauber cites research suggesting that horror consumption may actually help individuals develop resilience and coping mechanisms for real-world stressors.

Social Boundary Maintenance

One of the book’s most insightful contributions is its analysis of horror as a mechanism for establishing and challenging social boundaries:

• Defining normality: Horror monsters marking the boundaries of acceptable identity
• Reinforcing taboos: Horror punishments reflecting social prohibitions
• Challenging hierarchies: Monster sympathy questioning social exclusions
• Processing social change: Horror reflecting anxieties about changing norms

This analysis reveals horror as a sophisticated form of social discourse that both reinforces dominant values (by punishing transgressors) and challenges them (by creating sympathy for outsiders).

Cultural Processing of Historical Trauma

Dauber demonstrates how horror has consistently helped Americans process collective traumas:

• War trauma: Horror reflecting the psychological impacts of America’s many wars
• Economic crisis: Horror manifesting anxieties during depressions and recessions
• Political upheaval: Horror processing fears during periods of social transformation
• Technological disruption: Horror examining anxieties about rapid technological change

The book provides compelling evidence that horror spikes in popularity following periods of national trauma, suggesting the genre’s important role in collective psychological processing.

Commercial Functions

“American Scary” doesn’t ignore the economic dimensions of horror production:

• Low-barrier entry: Horror’s minimal production requirements making it accessible to independent creators
• High return potential: Horror’s ability to generate profits on limited budgets
• Marketing innovations: Horror’s development of immersive promotion techniques
• Cross-media exploitation: Horror franchises pioneering transmedia storytelling

This economic analysis reveals horror not just as cultural expression but as commercial enterprise, showing how market forces have shaped the genre’s development.

Subcultural Identity Formation

Dauber examines how horror fandom has served identity formation functions:

• Community building: Horror conventions and fan communities creating social bonds
• Countercultural positioning: Horror appreciation signaling resistance to mainstream values
• Knowledge hierarchies: Horror expertise establishing status within subcultural groups
• Identity expression: Horror consumption reflecting and reinforcing personal identity

This analysis shows how horror consumption has created spaces for alternative identity formation, particularly for individuals marginalized by mainstream culture.

Political and Social Critique

Perhaps most significantly, Dauber demonstrates horror’s function as political and social commentary:

• Authority critique: Horror often positioning institutional authority as threatening
• Social criticism: Horror metaphorically addressing real social problems
• Political allegory: Horror narratives encoding political commentary
• Subversive potential: Horror creating space for marginalized perspectives

The book highlights how horror’s marginal status has paradoxically given it freedom to express radical critiques that might be censored in more “respectable” genres. From the anti-consumerist satire of “Dawn of the Dead” (1978) to the racial critique of “Get Out” (2017), horror has consistently served as a vehicle for social and political commentary.

Through these functional analyses, “American Scary” elevates horror from mere entertainment to a complex cultural mechanism that serves vital psychological, social, and political purposes. Dauber convincingly argues that horror’s persistent popularity stems from its ability to address needs that more “respectable” cultural forms often ignore or suppress.

What Are the Strengths and Weaknesses of “American Scary”?

Strengths

1. Comprehensive Scope

“American Scary” stands out for its remarkable breadth, covering over three centuries of cultural history across multiple media forms. Unlike narrower studies focusing on specific periods or media, Dauber provides a genuinely holistic view of horror’s evolution in American culture. This comprehensive approach allows readers to see connections and continuities that might be missed in more specialized studies.

2. Interdisciplinary Methodology

The book successfully integrates approaches from literary studies, film theory, media studies, history, psychology, and sociology. This interdisciplinary methodology enables Dauber to analyze horror from multiple perspectives, creating a richer understanding than disciplinary-bound approaches would allow.

3. Accessible Writing Style

Despite its scholarly depth, “American Scary” remains remarkably readable. Dauber writes with clarity and occasional wit, avoiding academic jargon while maintaining intellectual rigor. This accessibility makes the book valuable for both academic and general readers interested in American culture and horror.

4. Attention to Marginalized Voices

The book deserves particular praise for highlighting contributions to American horror from creators often overlooked in genre histories. Dauber gives substantial attention to women, Black, Indigenous, Latino, Asian American, and LGBTQ+ horror creators, showing how marginalized perspectives have enriched the genre.

5. Historical Contextualization

“American Scary” excels at placing horror works within their specific historical contexts, demonstrating how the genre has responded to shifting social, political, and technological conditions. This approach prevents the common error of treating horror as a timeless expression of universal fears, instead showing its responsiveness to specific historical circumstances.

6. Theoretical Sophistication

While remaining accessible, the book engages thoughtfully with theoretical frameworks from psychology, cultural studies, and media theory. Dauber brings theoretical perspective without allowing theory to overwhelm the historical narrative or textual analysis.

7. Balanced Evaluation

The book strikes an effective balance between appreciation for horror’s cultural significance and recognition of its problematic aspects. Dauber acknowledges how horror has sometimes reinforced harmful stereotypes and prejudices while also highlighting its potential for progressive critique and subcultural resistance.

Weaknesses

1. Occasional Breadth-Depth Tradeoffs

The book’s comprehensive scope sometimes comes at the cost of depth in analyzing specific works or periods. Some readers might wish for more extended engagement with certain key texts or movements that receive relatively brief treatment due to the book’s broad historical sweep.

2. Limited Visual Elements

Given horror’s highly visual nature, especially in film and comics, the book would benefit from more illustrations. The limited number of black-and-white images doesn’t fully support Dauber’s visual analysis, particularly for readers unfamiliar with more obscure works discussed.

3. Technological Platform Emphasis

While Dauber thoroughly covers traditional media, his analysis of digital horror sometimes emphasizes technological platforms over content analysis. The sections on internet horror, while valuable, occasionally focus more on delivery mechanisms than on the narratives themselves.

4. Some Regional Imbalance

Though Dauber acknowledges regional variations in American horror, the book gives greater attention to Northeast, Southern, and California-based horror than to Midwestern and Western regional traditions, which receive comparatively less analysis.

5. Theoretical Tensions

Occasionally, the book’s application of multiple theoretical frameworks creates some tension, particularly between psychological and sociological explanations for horror’s functions. Dauber generally navigates these tensions skillfully, but at times the theoretical underpinnings could be more explicitly reconciled.

6. Contemporary Currency

Published in 2023, the book inevitably cannot account for very recent developments in horror. Readers interested in the absolute latest trends may need to supplement “American Scary” with more current criticism.

Despite these minor limitations, “American Scary” stands as an exceptional cultural history that significantly advances our understanding of horror’s role in American society. Its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses, making it essential reading for anyone interested in American cultural history or horror studies.

Who Should Read “American Scary”?

“American Scary” offers valuable insights for several distinct audiences, making it relevant beyond the typical readership for academic cultural histories. The book’s accessible style combined with its scholarly substance makes it appropriate for:

Academic Readers

• Cultural historians: The book provides a model for analyzing popular culture’s relationship to historical change
• Media studies scholars: Dauber’s cross-media approach offers insights into how different technologies shape cultural expression
• American studies researchers: The book illuminates key aspects of American identity formation and national mythology
• Genre theorists: “American Scary” contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations about horror’s formal and cultural functions

General Interest Readers

• Horror enthusiasts: Fans will gain deeper appreciation for favored works by understanding their historical and cultural contexts
• Cultural omnivores: General readers interested in American culture will find an accessible entry point to understanding horror’s significance
• History buffs: Those interested in American history will discover how horror reflects historical developments and national anxieties
• Film and literature fans: The book provides context for appreciating horror classics and discovering overlooked works

Professional Readers

• Creative professionals: Writers, filmmakers, and other creators will find inspiration in understanding horror’s evolution and cultural functions
• Educators: Teachers of literature, film, media studies, and American history will discover resources for contextualizing horror works
• Mental health professionals: The book offers insights into how horror narratives process collective trauma and anxiety
• Media industry professionals: Publishers, producers, and marketers will gain understanding of horror’s persistent appeal and commercial patterns

The book is particularly valuable for readers seeking to:

1. Understand American culture through the lens of its fears and anxieties
2. Trace connections between historical events and cultural expressions
3. Appreciate horror’s cultural significance beyond mere entertainment
4. Discover overlooked works from horror’s rich history
5. Gain context for contemporary horror by understanding its historical development

“American Scary” is accessible to readers without specialized academic background while providing enough substance to satisfy scholars. Dauber assumes basic familiarity with major historical periods and some key horror works, but generally provides enough context for readers new to the subject.

For first-time readers of cultural history or those unfamiliar with horror, the book might be challenging in places but remains more accessible than typical academic studies. Dauber’s clear writing style and careful explanation of theoretical concepts make the book approachable for motivated general readers.

As the experts at Readlogy have observed, “American Scary” stands out for its ability to engage multiple audiences simultaneously, providing both entry-level education for newcomers and sophisticated analysis for those already familiar with the subject.

How Does “American Scary” Compare to Other Books on Horror?

“American Scary” makes a distinctive contribution to the literature on horror through its comprehensive historical scope, interdisciplinary approach, and focus on horror as cultural expression rather than merely aesthetic form. To appreciate its significance, it’s helpful to compare it with other major works in the field.

Comparison with Academic Horror Studies

Unlike specialized academic studies that focus on specific periods or media, “American Scary” provides a comprehensive cultural history spanning centuries and multiple media forms. Compared to influential academic works like:

• Carol J. Clover’s “Men, Women, and Chainsaws” (1992): While Clover’s groundbreaking work offers deeper gender analysis of 1970s-80s slasher films, Dauber provides much broader historical context.

• David J. Skal’s “The Monster Show” (1993): Skal’s cultural history of horror focuses primarily on visual media and the 20th century, while Dauber traces horror’s roots to colonial America and covers literary forms more extensively.

• Adam Lowenstein’s “Shocking Representation” (2005): Lowenstein’s trauma theory approach to horror film is more theoretically focused, while Dauber balances theory with historical narrative and broader cultural analysis.

“American Scary” stands out for its accessibility to non-academic readers while maintaining scholarly rigor, making it more approachable than many academic horror studies.

Comparison with Popular Horror Histories

Compared to popular histories of horror like:

• Stephen King’s “Danse Macabre” (1981): King’s personal tour through horror offers more authorial perspective but less historical contextualization than Dauber’s more systematic approach.

• Jason Zinoman’s “Shock Value” (2011): Zinoman provides a detailed history of 1970s horror filmmaking, but with a narrower focus on a specific period and medium than Dauber’s comprehensive approach.

• Grady Hendrix’s “Paperbacks from Hell” (2017): Hendrix offers an entertaining exploration of horror publishing trends, while Dauber places such publishing phenomena within broader cultural and historical contexts.

“American Scary” provides more systematic historical analysis and theoretical framing than these popular approaches, while maintaining readable prose that will engage non-academic audiences.

Distinctive Contributions

Several features distinguish “American Scary” within horror scholarship:

1. Exceptional historical range: Few works attempt to cover American horror from colonial times to the present, making Dauber’s historical sweep unusually comprehensive.

2. Cross-media approach: Unlike studies focused on specific media, Dauber traces horror across literature, film, television, comics, digital media, and beyond.

3. National identity focus: The book’s emphasis on horror as expression of American identity and historical experience provides a distinctive analytical framework.

4. Accessibility with depth: “American Scary” achieves an uncommon balance between scholarly substance and readable style, making it valuable for both academic and general readers.

5. Contemporary relevance: The book extends analysis to recent developments in digital horror and social media, areas often neglected in existing scholarship.

These distinctive features position “American Scary” as both a synthesis of existing horror scholarship and a groundbreaking contribution that establishes new connections and frameworks for understanding horror’s cultural significance.

While specialized studies may offer deeper analysis of specific horror periods, media, or theoretical approaches, “American Scary” provides the most comprehensive single-volume cultural history of American horror currently available, making it an essential reference for understanding the genre’s development and significance.

What Are the Key Takeaways from “American Scary”?

“American Scary” offers several profound insights that transform our understanding of horror’s role in American culture. These key takeaways have implications beyond horror studies, illuminating broader aspects of American cultural history and identity formation.

1. Horror as Cultural Processing

The most significant takeaway is Dauber’s demonstration that horror has functioned as a crucial mechanism for processing collective traumas and anxieties throughout American history. Rather than mere entertainment or escapism, horror has provided Americans with structured frameworks for confronting fears from colonial wilderness anxiety to contemporary digital surveillance concerns. This perspective fundamentally reframes horror from marginal entertainment to essential cultural technology.

2. Horror’s Democratic Nature

Dauber persuasively argues that horror has been one of America’s most democratic cultural forms, accessible across social barriers of class, education, and background. Despite (or perhaps because of) its often lowbrow status, horror has provided a cultural forum where diverse perspectives could find expression when excluded from more “respectable” cultural forms. This democratic character makes horror particularly valuable for understanding American experiences outside elite cultural production.

3. Horror as Historical Barometer

The book establishes horror as an exceptional barometer for tracking historical anxieties and social transformations. By mapping horror trends against historical developments, Dauber demonstrates how the genre has consistently reflected America’s evolving fears, from Puritan wilderness anxiety to Cold War invasion narratives to post-9/11 torture horror. This correlation makes horror narratives valuable primary sources for understanding historical mentalities.

4. Horror’s Media Adaptability

“American Scary” reveals horror’s remarkable adaptability across evolving media technologies. From oral tales and printed sermons through film, television, comics, and digital platforms, horror has consistently found expression in new media forms, often pioneering techniques later adopted by mainstream culture. This adaptability explains horror’s persistence despite cultural marginalization.

5. Horror’s Dual Social Functions

Dauber identifies horror’s sophisticated dual social function: simultaneously reinforcing social boundaries by punishing transgression while creating sympathy for outsiders that challenges those same boundaries. This paradoxical operation helps explain horror’s appeal across political and social divides, offering both conservative reinforcement and progressive critique simultaneously.

6. Horror as National Identity Expression

Perhaps most provocatively, “American Scary” positions horror not as peripheral to American identity but central to it. Dauber argues that horror narratives have been fundamental to how Americans understand themselves since the nation’s founding, processing the violence, exclusion, and contradiction underlying American exceptionalist myths. This perspective suggests that understanding American horror is essential to understanding America itself.

7. Horror’s Commercial Innovation

The book highlights horror’s role as commercial innovator, consistently pioneering production, distribution, and marketing techniques later adopted by mainstream media. From exploitation film distribution to transmedia storytelling to viral marketing, horror has served as cultural laboratory for commercial practices eventually normalized throughout media industries.

8. Horror’s Scholarly Legitimacy

By bringing rigorous academic analysis to a often dismissed genre, “American Scary” makes a compelling case for horror’s legitimacy as subject for serious cultural and historical study. Dauber demonstrates that horror scholarship can illuminate broad cultural patterns and historical developments that might remain obscure through examination of more “respectable” cultural forms.

These key insights collectively establish “American Scary” as not merely a genre study but a significant contribution to understanding American cultural history more broadly. By repositioning horror from cultural margins to cultural center, Dauber provides a fresh perspective that enriches our understanding of how Americans have processed their collective experiences throughout the nation’s history.

Final Assessment: Is “American Scary” Worth Reading?

“American Scary” stands as an exceptional cultural history that transforms our understanding of horror’s role in American society. Jeremy Dauber has produced a work of remarkable breadth and depth that manages to be both scholarly and accessible, making it valuable for multiple audiences.

Overall Assessment

Rating: 5/5 stars

“American Scary” merits the highest recommendation for several reasons:

1. Comprehensive Coverage: The book’s historical sweep from colonial times to the present provides unparalleled context for understanding horror’s evolution.

2. Intellectual Substance: Dauber balances accessible writing with sophisticated cultural analysis, avoiding both academic opacity and superficial generalizations.

3. Cultural Insight: The book convincingly demonstrates horror’s significance as expression of American anxieties and national identity.

4. Cross-Media Approach: By examining horror across literature, film, television, comics, and digital media, Dauber reveals patterns that medium-specific studies miss.

5. Inclusive Perspective: The book gives appropriate attention to contributions from women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ creators often marginalized in genre histories.

Who Will Benefit Most

“American Scary” will be particularly valuable for:

• Cultural historians seeking to understand horror’s relationship to American identity formation
• Media scholars interested in how cultural forms evolve across different technological platforms
• Horror enthusiasts wanting deeper appreciation of favorite works and discoveries of overlooked gems
• Creative professionals looking for historical and cultural context to inform their own horror creations
• Educators teaching American cultural history, media studies, or genre studies

Final Recommendation

“American Scary” is not merely a book about horror but a profound exploration of American cultural psychology. By examining what has frightened Americans across three centuries, Dauber illuminates the nation’s hopes, anxieties, and self-conceptions in ways that more conventional cultural histories often miss.

Even readers with limited interest in horror specifically will find valuable insights about American cultural development, media evolution, and collective psychological processing. The book’s focus on horror as cultural technology rather than mere entertainment makes it relevant beyond genre enthusiasts.

For those specifically interested in horror, “American Scary” provides essential context that will enrich appreciation of both classic and contemporary works. Understanding horror’s historical evolution and cultural functions transforms genre consumption from simple entertainment to cultural engagement.

In the growing field of horror studies, “American Scary” establishes itself as an essential reference that will likely influence scholarship for years to come. Jeremy Dauber has produced a definitive cultural history that belongs on the shelf of anyone seriously interested in American culture, media history, or horror studies.

As the experts at Readlogy have concluded after careful analysis, “American Scary” represents cultural history at its finest—scholarly without being inaccessible, comprehensive without being overwhelming, and insightful without being pretentious. It deserves the widest possible readership among both academic and general audiences.