Not available to order
Publication date:
17 August 2017Length of book:
218 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781442276123
This book presents an insightful and thoroughly entertaining exploration of the political context of the Bond books and films. Jeremy Black offers a historian’s interpretation from the perspective of the late 2010s, assessing James Bond in terms of the greatly changing world order of the Bond years—a lifetime that stretches from 1953, when the first novel appeared, to the present. Black argues that the Bond novels—the Fleming books as well as the often-neglected novels authored by others after Fleming died in 1964—and films drew on current fears in order to reduce the implausibility of the villains and their villainy.
The novels and films also presented potent images of national character, explored the rapidly changing relationship between a declining Britain and an ascendant United States, charted the course of the Cold War and the subsequent post-1990 world, and offered an evolving but always potent demonology. Bond was, and still is, an important aspect of post–World War II popular culture throughout the Western world. This was particularly so after Hollywood launched the filmic Bond, thus making him not only a character designed for the American film market but also a world product and a figure of globalization. Class, place, gender, violence, sex, race—all are themes that Black scrutinizes through the ongoing shifts in characterization and plot. His well-informed and well-argued analysis provides a fascinating history of the enduring and evolving appeal of James Bond.
The novels and films also presented potent images of national character, explored the rapidly changing relationship between a declining Britain and an ascendant United States, charted the course of the Cold War and the subsequent post-1990 world, and offered an evolving but always potent demonology. Bond was, and still is, an important aspect of post–World War II popular culture throughout the Western world. This was particularly so after Hollywood launched the filmic Bond, thus making him not only a character designed for the American film market but also a world product and a figure of globalization. Class, place, gender, violence, sex, race—all are themes that Black scrutinizes through the ongoing shifts in characterization and plot. His well-informed and well-argued analysis provides a fascinating history of the enduring and evolving appeal of James Bond.
Fans of James Bond must get hold of this superb book by distinguished historian Jeremy Black. Black explores the enduring global fascination with Ian Fleming’s incredible creation, the legendary superspy 007, who comes to the defense of the Britons in this most recent dangerous dark age. With insight and flair, Black relates the Bond books and movies produced over the past sixty years to today’s kaleidoscopic real-world nightmares of superpower confrontation and international terrorism. In Jeremy Black, Mr. Bond has finally met his match!