Book description
Moving from "People" magazine to publicists' offices to tours of stars' homes, Joshua Gamson investigates the larger-than-life terrain of American celebrity culture. In the first major academic work since the early 1940s to seriously analyze the meaning of fame in American life, Gamson begins with the often-heard criticisms that today's…
- Coming soon!
Why read it?
1 author picked Claims to Fame as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
The sociologist Joshua Gamson was among the first to analyze the effects of television on our image of celebrityhood.
In Claims to Fame, he rebels against the democratization of fame and is nostalgic for the days before fame was divorced from merit.
He cites Clifford Geertz’s classic The Interpretation of Cultures to make the point that celebrities are “a powerless elite” with high status and visibility but literally no power of any kind over audiences.
And now, of course, in the age of social media, these discrepancies are magnified.
From Landon's list on celebrity culture and what it is doing to America.
If you love Claims to Fame...
These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Want books like Claims to Fame?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Claims to Fame.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,340
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Claims to Fame, you might also like...
Foxfire in the Snow
It's a time of change, between magic and alchemy.
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
The Main Gate
Dr. Elise Marquette has spent years burying the past—until the past refuses to stay buried.
Hired to join Earth’s first interstellar contact team, she hopes the vastness of space will finally offer distance from the ghosts of war and the wounds left by a mother who never let her be…
