On the Town: One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Times Square

Noted critic Berman writes, "I'm pretty suspicious of the discourse of nostalgia, including my own." And yet this uneven book is saturated with a nostalgic glow for times gone by, a wistfulness for the radicalism of the Popular Front of the 1930s, while disparaging the ideological trends that grew out of those earlier movements. This is nowhere more clear than in a misguided diatribe against a 1975 essay by the feminist critic Laura Mulvey. Despite his condescending and contradictory stance elevating the display of women but not their active participation in the creation of the culture of Times Square, Berman ends up proving Mulvey's point about women as objects of the male gaze rather than refuting it. Berman's goal is to mirror the multitudinous city about which he writes, so the study overflows with characters, stories and events, but that proves to be its weakness. There is too much to sustain a coherent argument, from novels to movies to Broadway musicals. Although Berman (All That Is Solid Melts into Air ) provides some fine interpretations of individual works, he is strongest when he sticks closest to the fascinating history of Times Square itself. B&w photos. (On sale Feb. 7)