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<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title>The Rise of True Crime: 20th-Century Murder and American Popular Culture - Jean Murley - Google Books</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/books/css/_c5f9cd9e241b1329c3ee374578edd3c4/kl_about_this_book_kennedy_full_bundle.css" type="text/css" /><link rel="stylesheet"href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Product+Sans:wght@400"><script src="/books/javascript/atb_c5f9cd9e241b1329c3ee374578edd3c4__en.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Rise_of_True_Crime_20th_Century_Murd.html?id=oASrCQAAQBAJ"/><meta property="og:url" content="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Rise_of_True_Crime_20th_Century_Murd.html?id=oASrCQAAQBAJ"/><meta name="title" content="The Rise of True Crime: 20th-Century Murder and American Popular Culture"/><meta name="description" content="During the 1950s and 1960s True Detective magazine developed a new way of narrating and understanding murder. It was more sensitive to context, gave more psychologically sophisticated accounts, and was more willing to make conjectures about the unknown thoughts and motivations of killers than others had been before. This turned out to be the start of a revolution, and, after a century of escalating accounts, we have now become a nation of experts, with many ordinary people able to speak intelligently about blood-spatter patterns and organized vs. disorganized serial killers. The Rise of True Crime examines the various genres of true crime using the most popular and well-known examples. And despite its examination of some of the potentially negative effects of the genre, it is written for people who read and enjoy true crime, and wish to learn more about it.With skyrocketing crime rates and the appearance of a frightening trend toward social chaos in the 1970s, books, documentaries, and fiction films in the true crime genre tried to make sense of the Charles Manson crimes and the Gary Gilmore execution events. And in the 1980s and 1990s, true crime taught pop culture consumers about forensics, profiling, and highly technical aspects of criminology. We have thus now become a nation of experts, with many ordinary people able to speak intelligently about blood-spatter patterns and organized vs. disorganized serial killers.Through the suggestion that certain kinds of killers are monstrous or outside the realm of human morality, and through the perpetuation of the stranger-danger idea, the true crime aesthetic has both responded to and fostered our culture's fears. True crime is also the site of a dramatic confrontation with the concept of evil, and one of the few places in American public discourse where moral terms are used without any irony, and notions and definitions of evil are presented without ambiguity. When seen within its historical context, true crime emerges as a vibrant and meaningful strand of popular culture, one that is unfortunately devalued as lurid and meaningless pulp."/><meta property="og:title" content="The Rise of True Crime: 20th-Century Murder and American Popular Culture"/><meta property="og:type" content="book"/><meta property="og:site_name" content="Google Books"/><meta property="og:image" content="https://books.google.com.sg/books/publisher/content?id=oASrCQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&imgtk=AFLRE73QVD3mhoidof6LvlMbV3I2wIL-phWXdxsVzI6WGzoBVQvFm1DdC3Bw-Gzh9hiEQIhGZA79ouG3zkfoY1rxoP8i3_2DxZ_a_wZ_dnMQhIQYpkLw8E1XsU_4GsKuARPTvp0PZzlp"/><link rel="image_src" href="https://books.google.com.sg/books/publisher/content?id=oASrCQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&imgtk=AFLRE73QVD3mhoidof6LvlMbV3I2wIL-phWXdxsVzI6WGzoBVQvFm1DdC3Bw-Gzh9hiEQIhGZA79ouG3zkfoY1rxoP8i3_2DxZ_a_wZ_dnMQhIQYpkLw8E1XsU_4GsKuARPTvp0PZzlp"/><script></script><style>#gbar,#guser{font-size:13px;padding-top:1px !important;}#gbar{height:22px}#guser{padding-bottom:7px !important;text-align:right}.gbh,.gbd{border-top:1px solid #c9d7f1;font-size:1px}.gbh{height:0;position:absolute;top:24px;width:100%}@media all{.gb1{height:22px;margin-right:.5em;vertical-align:top}#gbar{float:left}}a.gb1,a.gb4{text-decoration:underline !important}a.gb1,a.gb4{color:#00c !important}.gbi .gb4{color:#dd8e27 !important}.gbf .gb4{color:#900 !important} #gbar { padding:.3em .6em !important;}</style></head><body class=""><div id=gbar><nobr><a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://www.google.com.sg/search?tab=pw">Search</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://www.google.com.sg/imghp?hl=en&tab=pi">Images</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://maps.google.com.sg/maps?hl=en&tab=pl">Maps</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://play.google.com/?hl=en&tab=p8">Play</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://www.youtube.com/?tab=p1">YouTube</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://news.google.com/?tab=pn">News</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=pm">Gmail</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://drive.google.com/?tab=po">Drive</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 style="text-decoration:none" href="https://www.google.com.sg/intl/en/about/products?tab=ph"><u>More</u> »</a></nobr></div><div id=guser width=100%><nobr><span id=gbn class=gbi></span><span id=gbf class=gbf></span><span id=gbe></span><a target=_top id=gb_70 href="https://www.google.com/accounts/Login?service=print&continue=https://books.google.com.sg/books%3Fid%3DoASrCQAAQBAJ%26redir_esc%3Dy%26hl%3Den&hl=en&ec=GAZACg" class=gb4>Sign in</a></nobr></div><div class=gbh style=left:0></div><div class=gbh style=right:0></div><div role="alert" style="position: absolute; left: 0; right: 0;"><a href="https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=oASrCQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y&hl=en&output=html_text" title="Screen reader users: click this link for accessible mode. 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It was more sensitive to context, gave more psychologically sophisticated accounts, and was more willing to make conjectures about the unknown thoughts and motivations of killers than others had been before. This turned out to be the start of a revolution, and, after a century of escalating accounts, we have now become a nation of experts, with many ordinary people able to speak intelligently about blood-spatter patterns and organized vs. disorganized serial killers. <i>The Rise of True Crime</i> examines the various genres of true crime using the most popular and well-known examples. And despite its examination of some of the potentially negative effects of the genre, it is written for people who read and enjoy true crime, and wish to learn more about it.</p><p></p><p>With skyrocketing crime rates and the appearance of a frightening trend toward social chaos in the 1970s, books, documentaries, and fiction films in the true crime genre tried to make sense of the Charles Manson crimes and the Gary Gilmore execution events. And in the 1980s and 1990s, true crime taught pop culture consumers about forensics, profiling, and highly technical aspects of criminology. We have thus now become a nation of experts, with many ordinary people able to speak intelligently about blood-spatter patterns and organized vs. disorganized serial killers.</p><p></p><p>Through the suggestion that certain kinds of killers are monstrous or outside the realm of human morality, and through the perpetuation of the stranger-danger idea, the true crime aesthetic has both responded to and fostered our culture's fears. True crime is also the site of a dramatic confrontation with the concept of evil, and one of the few places in American public discourse where moral terms are used without any irony, and notions and definitions of evil are presented without ambiguity. When seen within its historical context, true crime emerges as a vibrant and meaningful strand of popular culture, one that is unfortunately devalued as lurid and meaningless pulp.</p></div></div></div><div class="search_box_wrapper"></div></td> </tr></table><div id="summary-second-column"></div></div></div></div></div><div class=vertical_module_list_row><h3 class=about_title><a name="about_author_anchor"></a>About the author <span style="color:#666; font-weight:normal">(2008)</span></h3><div id=about_author class=about_content><div id=about_author_v><div class=textmodulecontent><p><b>Jean Murley</b> is Assistant Professor of English at Queensborough Community College, of the City University of New York (CUNY). She has published a review of "Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture" for the <i>Journal of Popular Culture</i>, and an essay entitled "Ordinary Sinners and Moral Aliens: The Murder Narratives of Charles Brockden Brown and Edgar Allan Poe" in <i>Understanding Evil: An Interdisciplinary Approach</i> (2003), an anthology on contemporary understandings of evil.</p></div></div></div></div><div class=vertical_module_list_row><h3 class="about_title">Bibliographic information</h3><div class="about_content" id="metadata_content" style="padding-bottom:.3em"><div class="metadata_sectionwrap"><table id="metadata_content_table"><tr class="metadata_row"><td class="metadata_label">Title</td><td class="metadata_value"><span dir=ltr>The Rise of True Crime: 20th-Century Murder and American Popular Culture</span></td></tr><tr class="metadata_row"><td class="metadata_label"><span dir=ltr>Author</span></td><td class="metadata_value"><a class="primary" href="https://www.google.com.sg/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Jean+Murley%22&source=gbs_metadata_r&cad=2"><span dir=ltr>Jean Murley</span></a></td></tr><tr class="metadata_row"><td class="metadata_label"><span dir=ltr>Publisher</span></td><td class="metadata_value"><span dir=ltr>ABC-CLIO, 2008</span></td></tr><tr class="metadata_row"><td class="metadata_label"><span dir=ltr>ISBN</span></td><td class="metadata_value"><span dir=ltr>1573567728, 9781573567725</span></td></tr><tr class="metadata_row"><td class="metadata_label"><span dir=ltr>Length</span></td><td class="metadata_value"><span dir=ltr>192 pages</span></td></tr><tr class="metadata_row"><td class="metadata_label"><span dir=ltr>Subjects</span></td><td class="metadata_value"><div style="display:inline" itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Breadcrumb"><a class="primary" href="https://www.google.com.sg/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=subject:%22Social+Science%22" itemprop="url" dir=ltr><span itemprop="title">Social Science</span></a></div> › <div style="display:inline" itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Breadcrumb"><a class="primary" href="https://www.google.com.sg/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=subject:%22Social+Science+Popular+Culture%22" itemprop="url" dir=ltr><span itemprop="title">Popular Culture</span></a></div><br><br><a class="primary" href="https://www.google.com.sg/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=subject:%22Social+Science+/+Popular+Culture%22&source=gbs_metadata_r&cad=2"><span dir=ltr>Social Science / Popular Culture</span></a></td></tr><tr class="metadata_row"><td>&nbsp</td><td>&nbsp</td></tr><tr class="metadata_row"><td class="metadata_label"><span dir=ltr>Export Citation</span></td><td class="metadata_value"><a class="gb-button " href="https://books.google.com.sg/books/download/The_Rise_of_True_Crime_20th_Century_Murd.bibtex?id=oASrCQAAQBAJ&output=bibtex"><span dir=ltr>BiBTeX</span></a> <a class="gb-button " href="https://books.google.com.sg/books/download/The_Rise_of_True_Crime_20th_Century_Murd.enw?id=oASrCQAAQBAJ&output=enw"><span dir=ltr>EndNote</span></a> <a class="gb-button " href="https://books.google.com.sg/books/download/The_Rise_of_True_Crime_20th_Century_Murd.ris?id=oASrCQAAQBAJ&output=ris"><span dir=ltr>RefMan</span></a></td></tr></table></div><div style="clear:both"></div></div></div><script>_OC_addFlags({Host:"https://books.google.com.sg/", IsZipitFolderCollectionEnabled:1, IsBrowsingHistoryEnabled:1, IsBooksRentalEnabled:1, IsBooksUnifiedLeftNavEnabled:1});_OC_Run({"is_cobrand":false,"sign_in_url":"https://www.google.com/accounts/Login?service=print\u0026continue=https://books.google.com.sg/books%3Fid%3DoASrCQAAQBAJ%26redir_esc%3Dy%26hl%3Den\u0026hl=en"}, {"volume_id":"oASrCQAAQBAJ","is_ebook":false,"volumeresult":{"has_flowing_text":false,"has_scanned_text":false,"can_download_pdf":false,"can_download_epub":false,"is_pdf_drm_enabled":false,"is_epub_drm_enabled":false},"sample_url":"https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=oASrCQAAQBAJ\u0026source=gbs_atb_hover","is_browsable":false,"is_public_domain":false}, {});</script><div id="footer_table" style="font-size:83%;text-align:center;position:relative;top:20px;height:4.5em;margin-top:2em"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><a href="/intl/en/googlebooks/about.html"><nobr><nobr>About Google Books</nobr></nobr></a> - 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