Where Have All The Heroes Gone

From the men and women associated with the American Revolution and Civil War to the seminal figures in the struggles for civil and women's rights, Americans have been fascinated with icons of great achievement, or at least reputation. But who spins today's narratives about American heroism, and to what end? In Where Have All the Heroes Gone?, Bruce Peabody and Krista Jenkins draw on the concept of the American hero to show an important gap between the views of political and media elites and the attitudes of the mass public. The authors contend that important changes over the past half century, including the increasing scope of new media and people's deepening political distrust, have drawn both politicians and producers of media content to the hero meme. However, popular reaction to this turn to heroism has been largely skeptical. As a result, the conversations and judgments of ordinary Americans, government officials, and media elites are often deeply divergent. Investigating the story of American heroes over the past five decades provides a narrative that can teach us about such issues as political socialization, institutional trust, and political communication.

This book is a cry for heroes. We have lost our inspiration from great men and women who help us be the people we need to be.

Paradise lost? Op-ed journalist Rajendra Ramlogan has used his weekly column to cast a critical yet fond eye over life in his native Trinidad and Tobago, often doing so within the context of regional and international developments. Can these sister Caribbean islands play to their strengths to throw off the corruption and crime that threaten to drag them down? Since independence in the 1960s, the struggle for Trinidad and Tobago has been to fulfil its early promise, with politics descending into name-calling and self-preservation rather than attaining the aspirations and hopes of early post-colonial leaders. Its cultural diversity, with a population of mixed African and Indian descent, makes TT a unique place with music, food and holidays like nowhere else, but it can also cause tensions. Ultimately to really love a place, one must truly know it in all its imperfections.

'Where Have All the Heroes Gone?' provides an analysis of heroism's application and meaning among political and media elites, as well as the mass public over the past fifty years. In asking 'what has happened' to American heroes over this span, it explores how heroes are used strategically by governing officials and providers of media content in ways that are frequently divergent from and even directly opposed to popular expectations.

Most of us spend a fair amount of time trying to avoid responsibility. That's not too astounding. What is surprising, says Peter French, is that we tend to dodge the good variety as well as the bad.

Do American youths have heroes? Has the seeming loss of American society's shared values turned heroes into shallow celebrities? Or does the popularity of sport figures prove that heroes are viable? This text examines both sides of the debate. It asks questions such as: which societal institutions are sources of hero choices for youths?; how do gender, race and age affect hero choices?; what are the characteristics of heroes?; and do athletic heroes still exist?