Popular Science

Die Audio-Dokumentation mit bislang ungehörten O-Tönen der jungen Christiane F. (15): "Auf der einen Seite wusste ich, dass irgendwann einmal ein Wendepunkt in meinem Leben kommen wird. Das heißt aber auch, dass ich eben vielleicht noch ein paar Mal auf die Schnauze fliegen muss bevor es soweit kommt." West-Berlin in den 70ern: In dem Gemisch aus Abschottung, Kunst, Kultur, Politik und Drogen entstehen Parallelgesellschaften mit einmaligen Möglichkeiten, aber auch neuen Gefahren.

The most compelling figures in the Warner Bros. story are the sagacious Mo Ostin and the unlikely crew of hippies, eccentrics, and enlightened execs who were the first in the music business to read the generational writing on the wall in the mid-1960s. By recruiting outsider artists and allowing them to make the music they wanted, Ostin and his staff transformed an out-of-touch company into the voice of a generation. Along the way, they revolutionized the music industry and, within just a few years, created the most successful record label in the history of the American music industry.

Mathabane argues that the reason many Americans are turned off by the current divisive racial dialogue is because the discussion has mostly been about the politics of race and avoids the elephant in the room - - what each of us can do to become agents for racial healing. His solution is for people to learn to speak the language of Ubuntu, a Zulu word for common humanity.

Long before Superman or Batman made their first appearances, there was Zorro. Born on the pages of the pulps in 1919, Zorro fenced his way through the American popular imagination, carving his signature letter Z into the flesh of evildoers in Old Spanish California. Zorro is the original caped crusader, the first hero to have a band called the Avengers, and the character who laid the blueprint for the modern American superhero. In Zorro's Shadow, historian and Latin American studies expert Stephen J. C. Andes investigates the legends behind the mask of Zorro.

This book unravels the personal intrigues, hidden tensions, power plays, and cultural twists behind the media empire now known as Univision, and reveals how its programming —including telenovelas, soccer, news, and music—defined an identity and won over an audience that grew at the same pace as the network.

Listen to This stands out as the first book exclusively dedicated to Davis' watershed 1969 album, Bitches Brew. Victor Svorinich traces its incarnations and inspirations for 10-plus years before its release. The album arrived as the jazz scene waned beneath the rise of rock and roll and as Davis faced large changes in social conditions affecting the African-American consciousness.

Whether drinking Red Bull, relieving chronic pain with oxycodone, or experimenting with Ecstasy, Americans participate in a culture of self-medication, using psychoactive substances to enhance or manage moods. A "drug-free America" seems to be a fantasyland that most people don't want to inhabit. High: Drugs, Desire, and a Nation of Users asks fundamental questions about US drug policies and social norms.

In the years after World War II, the airline stewardess became one of the most celebrated symbols of American womanhood. Stewardesses appeared on magazine covers, on lecture circuits, and in ad campaigns for everything from milk to cigarettes. Airlines enlisted them to pose for publicity shots, mingle with international dignitaries, and even serve (in sequined minidresses) as the official hostesses at Richard Nixon's inaugural ball. Embodying mainstream America's perfect woman, the stewardess was an ambassador of femininity and the American way both at home and abroad.

The World Voice Project Book Series invites you to become part of one of the largest emerging community learning networks (CLNs) seeking to encourage a participatory culture through which everyone can share their works, thoughts, and art in order to express who they are on a global scale. Contributors share their stories while inviting the listener to step into their shoes and be part of their life by association.

From movies to politics, social media posts to the targeted ads between them, nostalgia is one of the most potent forces of our era. On Nostalgia is a panoramic cultural history of nostalgia, exploring how a force that started as a psychological diagnosis of soldiers fighting far from home has come become a quintessentially modern condition.

If you’re a never-Trumper, maybe you’d like to understand better your Trump-supporting relative at Thanksgiving dinner. Over 74 million of your fellow Americans voted for Trump in 2020. Despite all the things about him that make you crazy, they decided, "that’s my guy", and filled in the dot or pulled the lever. Why did they? How could they? Is there any way to bridge the gap between you and them?

Die Erschütterung der liberalen Demokratien wird oft mit der Schwäche der westlichen Werteordnung erklärt. Anne Applebaum wählt einen anderen Ansatz und fragt: Was macht die Rückkehr zu autoritären Herrschaftsformen für viele Menschen so erstrebenswert? An zahlreichen Beispielen – von den Brexiteers bis hin zu den illiberalen Demokratien Osteuropas – zeigt sie, welche Rolle dabei soziale Medien, Verschwörungstheorien und Nostalgie spielen.

Our age is obsessed by the idea of conspiracy. We see it everywhere---from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, from the assassination of Kennedy to the death of Diana. In this age of terrorism we live in, the role of conspiracy is a serious one---one that can fuel radical or fringe elements to violence. For award-winning journalist David Aaronovitch, there came a time when he started to see a pattern among these inflammatory theories.

Sheroes: Women hold up half the sky and, most days, do even more of the heavy lifting, including childbearing and child-rearing - all after a long day at the office. Women have always been strong, true heroes - sheroes, oftentimes unacknowledged. As we shake off the last traces of a major patriarchal hangover, women are coming into their own. In the 21st century, all women can fully embrace their fiery fempower and celebrate their no-holds-barred individuality. It is time to acknowledge the successful women of the world.

Marijuana has been illegal in the United States since 1937. Yet, thanks in large part to a loosely connected underground world of breeders, dealers, and smokers, there are currently more than 2000 varieties available. And since 1996, when California first passed legislation allowing for legalized medical marijuana, the underground has slowly surfaced, pushing what was once a decentralized, lawless world closer to the corporate world of business, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals.

Few consumers are aware of the economic forces behind the production of meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. Yet omnivore and herbivore alike, the forces of meatonomics affect us in many ways. Most importantly, we've lost the ability to decide for ourselves what - and how much - to eat. Those decisions are made for us by animal food producers who control our buying choices with artificially-low prices, misleading messaging, and heavy control over legislation and regulation.

Alan Riding introduces a pageant of 20th-century artists who lived and worked under the Nazis and explores the decisions each made about whether to stay or flee, collaborate or resist. We see Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf singing before French and German audiences; Picasso painting and occasionally selling his work from his Left Bank apartment; and Marcel Carné and Henri-Georges Clouzot, among others, directing movies....

With the rise of digital media and advertising, a constant barrage of information makes it nearly impossible to be seen and heard. In The Iconist, branding and design strategist Jamie Mustard shows you how individuals, organizations, and brands can break through the noise. The secret to standing out lies in creating content that the desired audience will “lock” onto and remember with little effort - simple, bold ideas that can be immediately understood.

There are very few modern hobbies that can honestly claim they have lived three distinct lives. Most begin as a craze, settle into a niche, and then either fade or become quietly institutional. The Pokémon Trading Card Game did something stranger and more enduring. It began as a children’s pastime, became a cultural flashpoint that adults argued about in staff rooms and school assemblies, then returned decades later as a booming adult obsession with its own economy, celebrities, and mythology. That alone would make it worth studying.

Is the top still spinning? Was it all a dream? In the world of Christopher Nolan's four-time Academy Award-winning movie, people can share one another's dreams and alter their beliefs and thoughts. Inception is a metaphysical heist film that raises more questions than it answers: Can we know what is real? Can you be held morally responsible for what you do in dreams? What is the nature of dreams, and what do they tell us about the boundaries of "self" and "other"?