Popular History

How did powder and paint, once scorned as immoral, become indispensable to millions of respectable women? How did a "kitchen physic", as homemade cosmetics were once called, become a multibillion-dollar industry? And how did men finally take over that rarest of institutions, a woman's business? In Hope in a Jar, historian Kathy Peiss gives us the first full-scale social history of America's beauty culture.

An energetic and impassioned work of popular science about scientists who have had to fight for their revolutionary ideas to be accepted—from Darwin to Pasteur to modern day Nobel Prize winners. For two decades, Matt Kaplan has covered science for the Economist. He’s seen breakthroughs often...

Forbes editor John Tamny uses entertaining stories from sports, movies, popular culture, and famous businesses to demonstrate the basic principles of economics. The Rolling Stones, the Dallas Cowboys, and Paris Hilton become examples of good and bad tax policy. The Godfather, Gone With the Wind, and The Sopranos reveal the downside of antitrust regulation while the Michigan Wolverines' 2007 loss to Appalachian State explains why regulations often fail to achieve their intended purposes.

The television industry is changing, and with it, the small screen's potential to engage in debate and present valuable representations of American history. Founded in 1972, HBO has been at the forefront of these changes, leading the way for many network, cable, and streaming services into the "post-network" era. Despite this, most scholarship has been dedicated to analyzing historical feature films and documentary films, leaving TV and the long-form drama hungry for coverage. Rebecca Weeks fills the gap in this area and defends the historiographic power of long-form dramas.

One of the world’s greatest bassists lays down the heart of Black music, revealing how its rhythmic structures and the long history of the African diaspora made it the world’s most popular form Why do Bob Marley, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, and Nina Simone move us the way they do? What...

A wall in the distant north cuts the world in two. Ruthless sea borne warriors raid the coasts from their war galleys, yearning to regain lost glories. A young nobleman and his kin are slaughtered under a banner of truce within a mighty castle. A warrior king becomes a legend when he smites his foe with one swing of his axe during a nation-forging battle. Yet this isn’t Westeros–it’s Scotland.

From coffee beans to extraordinary flavors. Being hundreds of years old, coffee has influenced civilizations and inspired many makers to discover new recipes for millions to enjoy. Yet what if there was a way to experience the best natural coffee flavors in the world by making them yourself? Why We Love Coffee is a visual collection of coffee facts and recipes that not only teach you how to recreate beloved coffee blends, but taste them like a professional coffee enthusiast.

¿Qué habría sido de nuestra juventud sin el Walkman, Pokémon, Pac-Man, y el anime? ¿Qué sería de nuestros mensajes de texto sin emojis? ¿Y de las celebraciones con amigos sin karaoke? Todas estas innovaciones y más se las debemos a los japoneses. Matt Alt, especialista en Japón y colaborador para medios como The New Yorker, se dio a la tarea de revelar en este libro la historia detrás de las principales creaciones niponas que han conquistado el planeta.

Popular culture has taught us to picture the Old West as a land of men, whether it's the lone hero on horseback or crowds of card players in a rough-and-tumble saloon. But the taming of the frontier involved plenty of women, too - and this book tells their stories. At first, female pioneers were indeed rare - when the town of Denver was founded in 1859, there were only five women among a population of almost a thousand. But the adventurers arrived, slowly but surely.

Per gli antichi le Sirene erano mostri orripilanti, per metà uccelli e per metà donne. Eppure, esse avevano qualcosa che le rendeva irresistibili: la voce, suadente e ammaliatrice. Insieme ad altre figure mitologiche a loro affini come Circe, Calipso ed Elena, le Sirene sono in questo libro le protagoniste della prima tappa di un cammino che, partendo da Omero e a Omero ritornando, si concentra sull'Atene del V secolo, la città della democrazia e della parola.

With remembrances from J. K. Rowling's editors, agents, publicists, fans, and Rowling herself, Melissa Anelli takes us on a personal journey through every aspect of the Harry Potter phenomenon - from his very first spell to his lasting impact on the way we live and dream.

The influence of the comic book has never been greater, from movies to streaming and beyond, but the journey comics took from little-regarded kids' magazines to literary prize-winning books and global franchises turned on a highly unusual group of writers and artists. Few would have expected a small gathering of British comic book fans and creators in the early 'seventies to be a global cultural pivot-point, but this was the start of a disparate movement of punks, dropouts, and disaffected youths who reinvented a medium and became the imaginative heart of a global success story.

In this new and expanded edition of Nelson George's classic cultural study, contemporary Black culture is chronicled through essays on music, film, sports, publishing, politics, and city life, both uptown and down. Buppies enter nearly every arena of the Black urban USA: roisterous rappers and legendary hoopsters, streetwise hustlers and influential filmmakers, unsung musicians and drug dealers at work.

At once a requisite collector's guide and a pursuit of meaning within storytelling, The Essential Guide to Collecting Calvin and Hobbes also offers a critical appraisal of Bill Watterson, as well as a deep examination of the most obscure Calvin and Hobbes relic, the textbook Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes: "a miraculous artifact unlike any other collectible in the world."

In the late 1990s, Manchester was a city in upheaval. The devastation of the IRA bomb and the closure of the infamous Haçienda nightclub were seismic events that rocked the city’s confidence at a time when identikit bands were flooding its clubs and bars, fuelled on anthemic guitar rock and swagger. Stereotypes were everywhere, while the spirit of Manchester was silently suffocating. Mancunians: Where do we start, where do I begin? is the story of those who didn’t fit the typecast.

Smith tells the joyful story of the musicians, the radio DJs, the record labels, and the live venues where jazz not only survived but thrived in the 1960s. In an era marked by turmoil and struggle, popular jazz offered a powerful outlet for joy, resilience, pride, and triumph.

The Girl Scouts: The History and Legacy of the Popular Youth Organization Across the World chronicles the history of the organization, the powerful women behind it, the growth of the sisterhood, and its members’ various accomplishments. You will learn about the Girl Scouts like never before.

Tras la catástrofe económica y humana del Gran Salto Adelante, un Mao envejecido diseñó un ambicioso plan para afianzar su liderazgo y su legado: la llamada Revolución Cultural, cuyo objetivo declarado era la purga definitiva de los burgueses infiltrados en el gobierno y la sociedad para minar el comunismo. No obstante, el plan servía al dictador para desembarazarse de veteranos miembros del Partido en la cúpula, a los que sometió a humillaciones públicas, encarcelamientos y torturas.

When does a scientific discovery become accepted fact? Why have scientific facts become easy to deny? And what can we do about it? In The Workshop and the World, philosopher and science historian Robert P. Crease answers these questions by describing the origins of our scientific infrastructure - the “workshop” - and the role of 10 of the world’s greatest thinkers in shaping it. As today’s politicians and government officials increasingly accuse scientists of dishonesty, conspiracy, and even hoaxes, engaged citizens wonder how we got to this level of distrust....

The year 1968 retains its mythic hold on the imagination in America and around the world. Like the revolutionary years 1789, 1848, 1871, 1917, and 1989, it is recalled most of all as a year when revolution beckoned or threatened. On the 50th anniversary of that tumultuous year, cultural historians Robert Cottrell and Blaine T. Browne provide a well-informed, up-to-date synthesis of the events that rocked the world, emphasizing the revolutionary possibilities more fully than previous books.