Near the conclusion of her case that the 1960s sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies addressed sundry questions about American culture and the American dream, Feldman maintains that while the show ‘ask[ed] us to suspend our disbelief,’ it, nonetheless, remained ‘believable.’  Some readers familiar with The Beverly Hillbillies may continue to question this claim even after reviewing Feldman’s strenuous efforts to identify the, in her view, manifold ways in which Paul Henning, the show’s creator, wove into his scripts commentary on American understandings of the relative merits of acquiring wealth through luck or achievement, the tension between urban culture and ‘country values,’ and the perennial question of whether or not money can buy one happiness. Feldman display’s knowledge of classical and modern political thought and a talent for drawing on this knowledge to tease occasional insights out of even this most unlikely of source material that may appeal to undergraduates. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduates all levels.
CHOICE
Informed by her command of classical and modern understandings of politics, economics, and human nature, Leslie Feldman’s work on The Beverly Hillbillies shows us how the pursuit of happiness at the heart of the American dream finds its fulfillment not in possessions, wealth, or status, but in those experiences which prove the bedrock of our republic and the heart of shared civic life: family, friends, hard work, civic engagement, humility, and trust. In an era that some critics are calling a golden age of TV, Leslie Feldman reminds us that this classic of American television provides us with an education in civics every bit as insightful as its contemporary rivals.
Bernard J. Dobski, Assumption College