Synopses & Reviews
Every year, children and adults alike take to the streets dressed as witches, demons, animals, celebrities, and more. They carve pumpkins and play pranks, and the braver ones watch scary movies and go on ghost tours. There are parades, fireworks displays, cornfield mazes, and haunted housesandmdash;and, most important, copious amounts of bite-sized candy. The popularity of Halloween has spread around the globe to places as diverse as Russia, China, and Japan, but its association with death and the supernatural and its inevitable commercialization has made it one of our most misunderstood holidays. How did it become what it is today?and#160;In Trick or Treat, Halloween aficionado Lisa Morton provides a thorough history of this spooky day. She begins by looking at how holidays like the Celtic Samhain, a Gaelic harvest festival, have blended with the British Guy Fawkes Day and the Catholic All Soulsandrsquo; Day to produce the modern Halloween, and she explains how the holiday was reborn in America, where costumes and trick-or-treat rituals have become new customs. Morton takes into account the influence of related but independent holidays, especially the Mexican Day of the Dead, as well as the explosion in popularity of haunted attractions and the impact of such events as 9/11 and the economic recession on the celebration today. Trick or Treat also examines the effect Halloween has had on popular culture through the literary works of Washington Irving and Ray Bradbury, films like Halloween and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Simpsons.and#160;Considering the holiday in the context of its worldwide popularity for the first time, this book will be a treat for any Halloween lover.
Review
"The best work so far on this increasingly important holiday."--Publishers Weekly
"Performs the heroic service of taking all the stuff in stores seriously, as instruments in the creation of a new unreligious holiday of some significance, if the retailers are to be believed.... They say that the devil is in the details, and Rogers is a connoisseur of delicious tidbits of macabre."--New York Times Book Review
"Halloween is a rich mix of historical detail and keen cultural observation about the holiday in North America. He reaches far back to the festival's pagan roots and follows its development into a unique celebration of liminality, cultural borrowing, and outrageous invention. Halloween is surely an important contribution to a growing literature that takes seriously our moments of play."--Penne Restad, author of Christmas in America: A History
"This book paints its subject in very broad strokes, giving us a glimpse of an increasingly significant holiday over a vast expanse of space and time. How delightful, too, to read about an event through a North American, rather than strictly American perspective."--Jack Kugelmass, author of Masked Culture: The Greenwich Village Halloween Parade
Review
andldquo;Trick or Treat covers the history of Halloween from its ancient Celtic roots to its stunning growth in global popularity in the 21st century. Morton is an accomplished horror short story writer, and her ability to draw readers in quickly and keep them turning the pages shines through in her nonfiction as well. Lavishly illustrated, this solidly researched and concise work is fun to read and a great choice for readers who want to know why we seek out the scary each October.andrdquo;and#160;
Review
and#160;andldquo;If you want to know anything at all about the subject, you ought to find it in Trick or Treat. . . . Mortonandrsquo;s interesting account of Halloweandrsquo;en is at its best when it comes up to date and there are many entertaining illustrations.andrdquo;
Review
and#160;andldquo;Full of historical nuggets and strange folklore, Lisa Morton's Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween is the perfect bible for all devoted disciples of the holiday.andrdquo;
Review
and#160;andldquo;With Trick or Treat Lisa Morton gives us a charming, creepy, insightful and thoroughly fascinating history of Halloween. Itandrsquo;s a delicious blend of cultural history and pop-culture savvy that is a true delight to read!andrdquo;
Review
and#160;andldquo;This is an excellent survey of the Halloween scene, informative and accessible, far more treat than trick.andrdquo;
Review
and#160;andldquo;In a modern world, increasingly filled with pop culture fads and gimmicks, Lisa Morton reveals much of the underbelly history and unknown facts regarding the biggest pop culture event in historyandmdash;Halloween. Her sheer delight and well-researched enthusiasm in tackling many of the unrecognized aspects of this monstrous topic makes one wonder what we don't know about everything else that should be as commonplace to our psyche as a bag of candy.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;[Morton] playfully sets the record straight on the origins of Halloween. . . . This book is an excellent example of the scholarship on holidays as a means of accessing many facets of history. Highly recommended.andrdquo;
Review
and#8220;From an authority on Halloweand#8217;en lore comes all you need to know about this and#8216;misunderstoodand#8217; festival. . . . Well written and illustrated, informative and entertaining.and#8221;
Synopsis
Boasting a rich, complex history rooted in Celtic and Christian ritual, Halloween has evolved from ethnic celebration to a blend of street festival, fright night, and vast commercial enterprise. In this colorful history, Nicholas Rogers takes a lively, entertaining look at the cultural origins and development of one of the most popular holidays of the year.
Drawing on a fascinating array of sources, from classical history to Hollywood films, Rogers traces Halloween as it emerged from the Celtic festival of Samhain (summer's end), picked up elements of the Christian Hallowtide (All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day), arrived in North America as an Irish and Scottish festival, and evolved into an unofficial but large-scale holiday by the early 20th century. He examines the 1970s and '80s phenomena of Halloween sadism (razor blades in apples) and inner-city violence (arson in Detroit), as well as the immense influence of the horror film genre on the reinvention of Halloween as a terror-fest. Throughout his vivid account, Rogers shows how Halloween remains, at its core, a night of inversion, when social norms are turned upside down, and a temporary freedom of expression reigns supreme. He examines how this very license has prompted censure by the religious Right, occasional outrage from law enforcement officials, and appropriation by Left-leaning political groups.
Engagingly written and based on extensive research, Halloween is the definitive history of the most bewitching day of the year, illuminating the intricate history and shifting cultural forces behind this enduring trick-or-treat holiday.
Synopsis
A wide-ranging, illustrated look at the history of Halloween illuminates the holiday from ancient Celtic ritual to billion-dollar industry. 32 halftones & line illustrations.
About the Author
Nicholas Rogers is Professor of History at York University. He is the co-author of
Eighteenth-Century English Society: Shuttles and Swords (OUP) and the author of
Crowds, Culture, and Politics in Georgian Britain (OUP), for which he received the 1999 Wallace K. Ferguson Prize of the Canadian Historical Association for the best book on non-Canadian history.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Halloween: The Misunderstood Festival
2. Snap-apple Night and November Eve: Halloween in the British Isles
3. Trick or Treat in the New World
4. La Toussaint, Allerheiligen and Tutti i Santi: The Global Celebration
5. Dias de los Muertos
6. From Burns to Burton: Halloween and Popular Culture
References
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index