Friday, May 25 2012
Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-American Coup
In 1953, the American and British intelligence agencies launched a coup in Iran against a bedridden 72-year-old man. Muhammad Mossadegh's crimes had been to flirt with communism and to nationalize his country's oil industry, which for 40 years had been in British hands. Mossadegh must go.
Tuesday, May 22 2012
Charles Dickens Through the Lens of Canonicity
Critical discourse on Charles Dickens – especially late Dickens, most especially of all Bleak House – has gotten out of hand, and finds itself concentrating on virtues that Dickens doesn’t actually possess in a bid to shoehorn him into our notion of what a great writer is and what his writing does.
Friday, May 18 2012
The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game
Anthropologist John Fox sets off on a worldwide adventure to the farthest reaches of the globe and the deepest recesses of our ancient past to answer a question inspired by his sports-loving son: "Why do we play ball?"
Tuesday, May 15 2012
20 Questions: Kate Bornstein
"I was a Scientologist for 12 years, which is a lot more embarrassing than saying Hi, I’m a transsexual SM dyke living with borderline personality disorder," Kate Bornstein tells PopMatters 20 Questions on the release of her memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger.
Friday, May 11 2012
Fat, Drunk, and Stupid: The Inside Story Behind the Making of Animal House
In 1976 the creators of National Lampoon, America’s most popular humor magazine, decided to make a movie.
Thursday, May 3 2012
Seeing the Light: Inside the Velvet Underground
With exclusive new interviews from Velvet Underground, this is a captivating account of one of the most influential groups in rock history.
Friday, April 27 2012
The Omnivorous Mind: Our Evolving Relationship with Food
We humans eat a wide array of plants and animals, but unlike other omnivores we eat with our minds as much as our stomachs.
Friday, April 20 2012
Squeeze This!: A Cultural History of the Accordion in America
No other instrument has witnessed such a dramatic rise to popularity -- and precipitous decline -- as the accordion. Squeeze This! is the first history of the piano accordion and the first book-length study of the accordion as a uniquely American musical and cultural phenomenon.
Friday, April 13 2012
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
A chilling account of how a low-level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the Russian presidency and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress and made his country once more a threat to her own people and to the world.
Friday, April 6 2012
A Dot, A Messenger, An Icon: An “A to Z” Conversation with Paul Kelly
If Paul Kelly were an American, he'd be regarded as the States' premiere Americana songwriter. He'd be the king of Austin, or Nashville's ruling prince. But Kelly was born in Adelaide, and often places the aforementioned universal themes amidst Australian locales and history.
Thursday, April 5 2012
The Story of English in 100 Words
English language expert David Crystal takes readers on a tour of the winding byways of our language via the rude, the obscure and the downright surprising.
Friday, March 30 2012
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow's Drift argues that we've drifted away from America's original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails.
Friday, March 23 2012
Henry Mancini: Reinventing Film Music
Henry Mancini has sold 30 million albums and won four Oscars and 20 Grammy awards. Through Mancini, mere background music in movies became part of pop culture -- an expression of sophistication and wit with a modern sense of cool and a lasting lyricism that has not dated.
Friday, March 16 2012
Textbook Oppositions and Alternatives: Re-Thinking the Role of Race in ‘60s Rock and Soul Music
Black rock musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and Arthur Lee (Love), as well as white soul musicians in the racially integrated bands playing on recordings of singers like Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett, existed during the '60s. So why is rock and soul so black and white?
Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents
This reprint of the cult classic memoir, based on Ellen Ullman’s early years as a computer programmer, reaffirms the reach and relevance of her thoughts on technology and creativity. Her insight is also foresight, and her story remains immediate, critical – and very entertaining.
Friday, March 9 2012
Talk About Getting Lost In a Book: Our Favorite Fiction of 2011
Read this book, pass it on to those who deserve it, and be thankful that the world contains artists like...
Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times
Four jazz musicians from Brooklyn, Ghana, and South Africa demonstrate how modern Africa reshaped jazz, how modern jazz helped form a new African identity, and how such musical crossings altered the politics and culture of both continents.
Monday, March 5 2012
20 Questions: Ellen Ullman
Technophile, humanist and storyteller Ellen Ullman is touring for her latest, By Blood. The cult classic Close to the Machine and runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award, The Bug, are enjoying a resurgence, as well. From the sterile environs of an airport terminal, Ullman recalls a glorious range of artists and intellectuals (and the work they have produced) that have shaped her.
Friday, March 2 2012
The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness
From gospel to soul, funk to freestyle, Kevin Young sifts through the shadows, the bootleg, the remix, the grey areas of our history, literature, and music.
Monday, February 27 2012
Learning From Vampires: High Stakes Vampire Literature
What does society's fascination with vampire tales tell us about men, women and relationships? It's time to take one more look.
