Small Wonder : Worlds in a Box (American Scene)

David Levinthal takes as his subject a remarkable series of 1950s playsets manufactured by master toymakers Louis Marx and T. Cohn. As a reflection of the obsessive play of the 1950s and the current nostalgia for such items, his tabletop photography allows a bird’s-eye view of imaginary tableaux – Legionnaire Captain Gallant in the desert, Fort Apache and the Wild West, boy scouts camping in the woods, and travelers making a stop at a roadside Howard Johnson’s. These inspired micro-worlds in a box” vignettes are like stills from a movie of American popular culture’s collective unconscious.This book was intended to be a critical