‘The Man in the Bowler Hat: His History and Iconography’

Author: Fred Miller Robinson

Info: University of North Carolina Press, 1993, $24.95 hardcover; 199 pages.

From Laurel, Hardy and Chaplin to Samuel Beckett’s tramps in “Waiting for Godot,” the bowler hat has become a familiar shape in our visual lexicon.

Robinson challenges the view of industrial society as the creation and milieu of a colorless, faceless, middle-class herd. By following the fortunes of a single item of fashion, Robinson unfolds a cultural history of modernism and modern life, pursuing the bowler’s intriguing history through an illustrated tour of art, literature fashion, politics and film through present day.

He traces uses and social meanings--serious and satiric--beginning in the mid-19th Century, offering convincing evidence that modern society has always had room for humor, originality and individual expression.

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Fred Robinson is a professor and chairman of English at the University of San Diego. This book is available at Rizzoli Bookstore in South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, and other area bookstores.