Word: mania
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...prominent radio actor during the late '40s and early '50s whose career collapses when his estranged wife writes a book titled, quite accurately, I Married a Communist. Philip Roth filters the story of Rinn's downfall through the memories of two men who loved and admired him. The mania of the Red-baiting days is recorded with perfect pitch. Roth's look at the past is harrowing and mesmerizing...
Consider the first toy mania, the one surrounding teddy bears early this century. Their ascendance stemmed partly from adult interest, says Gary Cross, a historian and author of Kids' Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood. Yes, the bears were cuddly, but parents liked the story that inspired them: Theodore Roosevelt's saving a baby bear on a 1902 hunting trip. Nevertheless, it was kids who ultimately made teddy bears more than a fad. It took at least four years for teddy bears to sell well, only after kids across the country started seeing them...
...early admissions mania has spread," says B. Ann Wright, chief public relations officer at Smith College and an expert on college admissions and financial...
Young fans will no doubt swoon, but some parents, like Ted Fishman of Chicago, are a bit alarmed by the merchandising mania. His 10-year-old daughter Elly has already circled half the inventory in the latest catalog for her holiday wish list. "These dolls are supposed to represent wholesomeness and frugality," he notes wryly. But slave girl Addy's ironstone compote set ($50) "costs more than a real set would." In that way, at least, these dolls are thoroughly modern...
...hunts and blacklistings during the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies, but it would be hard to find one among them that presents as nuanced, as humanly complex an account of those years as I Married a Communist. Nathan, for example, learns from Murray that Ira was a victim of the mania of his times but not an innocent one. He was a dedicated communist who lied to everyone, including Nathan's father, about his adherence to the dictates of Moscow. On the other hand, the forces that destroyed him were not particularly admirable either, beginning with an ill-chosen wife...