Beatlemania in America: Fan Culture From Below, by Andrew Hunt

Beatlemania in America: Fan Culture From Below, by Andrew Hunt (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023; pp. xi + 227. £65).

Andrew Hunt has written a smart and engaging study of Beatlemania in the USA. The book gets off to a rather shaky start with the claim that it is ‘the first in-depth study of Beatlemania written from an array of perspectives’ (p. 3). It is a slightly jarring boast, especially when linked to an endnote listing some of the many fan-oriented texts that do just that, though oddly not Richard Mills’s fine book on the topic, which would have made a good foil for Hunt’s work (R. Mills, The Beatles and Fandom: Sex, Death and Progressive Nostalgia [2019]). Thereafter, however, the book settles down into a fascinating, balanced account of how diverse American communities reacted to the Beatles, covering the spectrum from staunch Beatlephobes to diehard Beatlephiles.

Hunt pays close attention to changes over time as the Beatles evolved, musically and with regard to their politics and self-presentation, emphasising how those changes affected the attitudes of various constituencies towards the group. And he places that story within the context of key social, cultural and political transformations during the 1960s. Beatlemania, Hunt convincingly argues, provides a valuable lens through which to examine important debates around gender, sexuality, class, religion, generational tensions, Cold War politics and much more besides. If this is not exactly revelatory, it is authoritatively handled and provides important scaffolding for the more original aspects of the book.