Popular History

By the early 1970s, practically everyone under a certain age liked rock music, but not everyone liked it for the same reasons. We typically associate the sounds of classic rock 'n' roll with youthful rebellion by juvenile delinquents, student demonstrators, idealistic hippies, or irreverent punks. But in this insightful and timely book, author George Case shows how an important strain of rock music from the late 1960s onward spoke to and represented an idealized self-portrait of a very different audience.

Schwitzen im Proberaum einer Moskauer Rockband. Ehemalige Sowjetrepubliken, die Kabardino-Balkarien heißen. Ein Stripclub an der Wolga. Techno Clubs, in denen nichts zufällig passiert. Und das Krankenzimmer eines Moskauer Hospitals. Diane Hielscher diskutiert auf Kinderspielplätzen über die Postmoderne, tanzt mit Jugendlichen am schwarzen Meer, trinkt in dunklen Bars und fremden Wohnzimmern. Nebenbei erlernt sie die Feinheiten der russischen Vulgärsprache - während im Kaukasus gerade der Krieg ausbricht.

They didn’t just make Mario. They made your childhood — and then they made sure you’d never forget it. From handmade Japanese playing cards to the global Pokémon phenomenon, Nintendo has spent over a century shaping culture, controlling imagination, and redefining what fun means — on their terms. This isn’t just a company biography. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the secret history of control, nostalgia, and innovation, told through the colorful world of pixels and power-ups. You’ll revisit the games that changed everything — from Donkey Kong to Zelda, Pokémon to Smash Bros.

What was the real significance of William James's breakdown? Of the anti-Semitism in T.S. Eliot's writing? At each step in his latest journey through American cultural history, Menand has an original point to make.

From the sleek Aston Martin that spits out bullets, nails, and passengers at the push of a button to the microjet that makes hairpin turns to avoid a heat-seeking missile, the science and technology of James Bond films have kept millions of movie fans guessing for decades. Are these amazing feats and gadgets truly possible? The Science of James Bond takes you on a fascinating excursion through the true science that underlies Bond's most fantastic and off-the-wall accoutrements.

Esta es la historia de la Santa Muerte, culto de crisis; remix de catolicismo, kermesse y New Age; un culto hedonista pero también de sacrificio corporal; reflejo de fuerzas económicas, psicológicas y sociales más amplias de lo que tal vez ninguno de sus acólitos sospecha.

The professional judgment of gatekeepers defined the American news agenda for decades. Making the News Popular examines how subsequent events brought on a post-professional period that opened the door for imagining that consumer preferences should drive news production - and unleashed both crisis and opportunity on journalistic institutions.

Comic Book Women offers a feminist history of the golden age of comics, revising our understanding of how numerous genres emerged and upending narratives of how male auteurs built their careers. Considering issues of race, gender, and sexuality, the authors examine crime, horror, jungle, romance, science fiction, superhero, and Western comics to unpack the cultural and industrial consequences of how women were represented across a wide range of titles by publishers like DC, Timely, Fiction House, and others.

Before The Beatles landed on American shores in February 1964, only two British acts had topped the Billboard singles chart. In the first quarter of 1964, however, the Beatles alone accounted for 60% of all recorded music sold in the United States; in 1964 and 1965 British acts occupied the number one position for 52 of the 104 weeks; and from 1964 through to 1970, the Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, and more placed more than 130 songs on the American Top Forty.

Danny Goldberg's new book is a subjective history of 1967, the year he graduated from high school. It is, he writes, "an attempt at trying to remember the culture that mesmerized me, to visit the places and conversations I was not cool enough to have been a part of." It is also a refreshing and new analysis of the era; by looking at not only the political causes, but also the spiritual, musical, and psychedelic movements, Goldberg provides a unique perspective on how and why the legacy of 1967 lives on today.

On December 22, 1953, Mort Sahl took the stage at San Francisco's hungry i and changed comedy forever. Before him, standup was about everything but hard news and politics. In his wake, a new generation of smart comics emerged - Shelley Berman, Mike Nichols, and Elaine May, Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart, Dick Gregory, Woody Allen, and the Smothers Brothers, among others.

In the aftermath of World War II, America stood alone as the world's premier military power. Yet its martial confidence contrasted vividly with its sense of cultural inferiority. Still looking to a defeated and dispirited Europe for intellectual and artistic guidance, burgeoning transnational elite in New York and Washington embraced not only the war's refugees but many of their ideas as well, and nothing has proven more pernicious than those of the Frankfurt School and its reactionary philosophy of "critical theory".

"WOW!! I didn't know that!!" - this is what I predict you will say literally hundreds of times as you listen to this book. In fact, in the humblest sort of way, I am confident that you will learn more from this book about the world we live in and interacting with our fellow human beings than you did in all your years of high school and college. I really wish someone would have given me this book before I left school and entered the real world.

Does the number of children gunned down double each year? Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually? Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers? Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues. But all too often, these numbers are wrong. This book is a lively guide to spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers. Damned Lies and Statistics is essential listening for everyone who reads or listens to the news....

La storia dell'arte può essere raccontata da tanti punti di vista: attraverso le tecniche, i movimenti, le committenze, i linguaggi o gli stili. Questo audiolibro sceglie un'altra strada. Ci invita a compiere un viaggio nel tempo, dall'antichità ad oggi, per scoprire come gli artisti hanno rappresentato le emozioni, quelle che si annidano nei nostri stati d'animo più ineffabili e affascinanti.

Black Panther is one of the most financially successful and culturally impactful films to emerge from the American film industry in recent years. When it was released in 2018 it broke numerous records and resonated with audiences all around the world. In Black Panther: Interrogating a Cultural Phenomenon, author Terence McSweeney explores the film from a diverse range of perspectives, seeing it as not only a comic book adaptation and a superhero film, but also a dynamic contribution to the discourse of both African and African American studies.

Christmas is the most important holiday of the year. After the corresponding days that exalt the national pride of each country, such as Independence Day in the United States, Victory Day in Russia, or Bastille Day in France, it's December 25 that articulates the life, the work, and the economy in much of the world, including many non-Christian countries. Since ancient times, the beginning of winter has been the occasion for most people to eat, drink, dance, and get together to beat the drum and take a break.

Given the prominence of scouting culture in the United States, many assume that the movement is rooted in North America. On the contrary, the movement was initiated in and spread forth from the United Kingdom, more specifically in England. It was the brainchild of the 1st Baron Baden-Powell, a beloved and decorated war veteran armed with not only Martini-Henry rifles and Lee-Enfield carbines but a vision that would one day be espoused by every nation on earth except Andorra, China, Cuba, North Korea, and Laos.

The Boy Scouts: The History and Legacy of the World's Most Popular Youth Organization chronicles the history of the organization, and how it came to be so famous.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that it is much easier to overthrow a government than form a new one, and that in turn it is easier to form a government than to govern. The men who founded America knew these facts in theory, but in the last decade of the 18th century, they learned them by experience when, just a few years after the new Constitution had been ratified, a rebellion arose over taxes.