"Americans are held captive by horror stories. They flicker on the screen of a darkened movie theater and are shared around the campfire. They blare out in tabloid true crime headlines and in the worried voices of local new anchors. They are consumed, virally, on the phones in our pockets. Like the victims in any slasher movie worth its salt, we can't escape the thrall of scary stories. In American Scary, noted cultural historian Jeremy Dauber pulls from his hugely popular Columbia University class on the history of horror to take the reader to the startling origins of American fear. Dauber draws a captivating through line that ties historical influences ranging from the Salem witch trials and enslaved-person narratives directly to the body of work we more closely associate with horror today: the weird tales of H. P. Lovecraft, the lingering fiction of Shirley Jackson, the disquieting films of Alfred Hitchcock, the up-all-night stories of Stephen King, and the gripping critiques of Jordan Peele. From "The Tell-Tale Heart" to M3gan, we begin to see why the horror genre is the perfect prism through which to view America's past and present. With the dexterous weave of insight and style that have made him one of America's leading chroniclers of popular culture, Dauber makes the haunting case that horror reveals the true depths of the American mind." -- Jacket flap.