Ethnic Humor Around the World: A Comparative Analysis

Ethnic Humor Around the World: A Comparative Analysis by Davies, Christie. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780253210814.

...a brilliant, insightful work. It will surely become the authoritative study on this complex subject - "Choice". There are so many good things in this volume that it is difficult to select the best. I found the chapter concerning American, British, and Australian jokes about one another particularly fascinating, illustrating as it did the different stress on achievement, equality, and status in each of these societies - "London Sunday Telegraph". [T]he most comprehensive work to date on ethnic jokes and, by extension, folk humor - "Journal of American Folklore". Where do ethnic jokes come from? Why do we tell them? Whom do we tell them about? Christie Davies examines jokes about every continent, explaining with a profusion of hilarious examples how, why, and about whom people everywhere tell ethnic jokes. The contents include: Introduction; The Stupid and the Canny; Who Gets Called Stupid?; The Stupid and the Dirty; Who Gets Called Canny?; How Ethnic Jokes Change Militarists and Cowards; Anglo-Saxon Attitudes; Food for Thought; and, Conclusion.