Funny Stuff: How Comedy Shaped American History and 100 Years of Laughter: American Comedy in the Twentieth Century

I picked up these two recently published books about the history of comedy in America for something to read on my long flight to Edinburgh. This felt ironic, because neither book spends much time on theater, while at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest performing arts festival, comedy and theater are so thoroughly intertwined, it’s hard...