The Book of Cool: What is It? Who Decides It? And Why Do We Care So Much?

by Marianne Taylor

From jazz music to wearing sunglasses indoors, “cool” has always been the ultimate social label. The craving for this acceptance has powered popular culture for the last hundred years. Fashion, music, cars, pop idols, attitudes, and even some schools and parents, have been labeled Cool. But by whom? The truth is: no one in particular. And then there is the whimsical nature of being Cool: The arbiters of taste and style are so eager to pronounce something Cool, that something immediately becomes uncool as the masses rush to adopt it, in order to be Cool first. Something or someone can be so “In” they quickly become “So Five Minutes Ago” before spiraling downward to “Out.” And then, like nerds and bell-bottoms, something can be so “Out”, it’s “In.” (That’s cool.)

Taylor details the history of Cool, spotlighting its current manifestations. She charts the evolution of Cool from the sidewalks to the boardrooms, separating who creates cool from who merely markets it.

232 pages, Hardcover

First published June 22, 2009

Reviews

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

"As this book states over and over, nothing taints cool more than its obsessive pursuit".

Word.