Authors Barry Glassner and Arlene Stein both agree that Americans are an increasingly fearful people. They concentrate on different fears and have vastly different research and writing styles. However, they also agree that majority of these fears are blown far out of proportion. They also both argue that these fears continue to be propagated, to serve the vested interests of social elites.

This book compares and contrasts Glassner's The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things and Stein's The Stranger Next Door. The first part of this paper examines Glassner's use of case studies to address American fears such as "Killer Kids," "Monster Moms" and "Black Men." This paper then evaluates Glassner's assertion that these unfounded fears are integral to understanding dysfunction in American society.

The next part of this paper then looks at Stein's The Stranger Next Door, an engaging read about how a small working-class town in Oregon became ground zero in the battle between homosexual rights acti

The strengths of The Culture of Fear, however, lie in the deft analysis Glassner employs to explain how such fears come about. The author places much of the blame on the media and the constant portrayal of "negative presumptions" regarding American citizens and institutions. However, throughout the book, Glassner also dissects how such fears help further vested interests of social elites. For example, the furor over the supposed climate of "political correctness" on college campuses were fanned by "right-wing foundations...and corporate and individual contributors" who have funded such fears with millions of dollars. These campaigns are part of how political and economic elites strive to maintain their social dominance.

Lesbians and gays made up a small minority of these newcomers, but they represented the greatest "difference." They were therefore the population that was most easily stigmatized and demonized. When the OCA brought its campaign to Timbertown, it therefore found a population receptive to its fear-based message. Already, the residents feared that their livelihoods were being eroded and their core values were under siege. The OCA tapped into these fears by painting gay rights legislation as "special rights," in the same vein as "special rights of Spotted Owls" (121). The special rights language capitalized on Timbertown residents' fears that the government had neglected its working-class constituency in favor of these strangers. For Timbertown, gays and lesbians were the strangest - and therefore the most feared.

Glassner also right observes that the misplaced fears continue to serve elite interests. The misplaced fears mean that as a society, we also misallocate resources and neglect issues that should be of genuine social concern. The focus on "pseudodangers" such as road rage, for example, focuses attention away from guns or overcrowded roads. The focus on violence in the media erupted in the late 1980s, undermining any coverage or concern over the growing trend of corporate retrenchment. In summary, despite its statistical flaws, The Culture of Fear offers insightful sociological analysis regarding how social fears are cultivated and spread.

Sociologist Barry Glassner gets right to the point from the very beginning, when he asks the reader "Why are so many fears in the air, and many of them unfounded?" (xi). Glasser examines how

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Approximate Word count = 1610
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)