Showing titles in History & Criticism

Even 150 years later, we are haunted by the Civil War---by its division, its bloodshed, and perhaps, above all, by its origins. Today, many believe that the war was fought over slavery. This answer satisfies our contemporary sense of justice, but as Gary W. Gallagher shows in this brilliant revisionist history, it is an anachronistic judgment.

With a connoisseur's insight and an offbeat sensitivity perfectly tailored to his subjects, Gifford's brief essays cover a hundred of the noir buff's favorites. His highly polished impressions take the listener through five decades of noir to find both the heart and the art of the plotline.

From the Emmy Award-winning Squid Game to streaming sensations like The Glory and Crash Landing on You, Korean television has emerged onto the global pop culture scene as compelling television—but what exactly makes these shows so irresistibly bingeable? And what can we learn about our...

*Vulture's Best Comedy Book of 2023* From the author of Generation Friends, featuring brand-new interviews with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, a surprising, incisive, and often hilarious book about the film that changed comedy, Anchorman. It’s been nearly twenty years since Ron Burgundy burst...

From a longtime Vanity Fair writer and editor, a delightfully entertaining, intelligent, and illuminating history and tribute to teen movies—from Rebel Without a Cause to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and on to John Hughes, Mean Girls, The Hunger Games, and more. What influence did Francis...

*Updated edition includes bonus chapter* Winner of the 2017 Audie Award for Humor "A truth-riot of a book!"—Shonda Rhimes New York Times Bestseller #1 Washington Post Bestseller Redbook “20 Books By Women You Must Read this Fall” GoodHousekeeping.com “17 New Best New Books to Read This...

The media of the 1950s and 1960s promoted an idealized version of American life sustained by the nuclear family and bolstered by a booming consumer economy. The seemingly wholesome and simple lifestyles portrayed on television screens, however, belied a torrent of social, economic, and political struggles occurring at the time. By the late 1950s, television writers were increasingly constrained to distract audiences from confronting counternarratives to the Dream.

An unauthorized look at the philosophical issues raised by popular television show House. House was one of the top three television dramas on the air, pulling in more than 19 million viewers for each episode. This latest book in the popular Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series takes a deeper look at the characters and issues raised in this Emmy Award-winning medical drama, offering entertaining answers to the fascinating ethical questions viewers have about Dr. Gregory House and his medical team.

Years before synchronized sound became the norm, projected moving images were shown to musical accompaniment, whether performed by a lone piano player or a hundred-piece orchestra. Today film music has become its own industry, indispensable to the marketability of movies around the world. Film Music: A Very Short Introduction is a compact, lucid, and thoroughly engaging overview written by one of the leading authorities on the subject. 

Apocalypse Television features a dramatic insider's account of the making of and backlash against The Day After. No other book has told this story in similar fashion, venturing behind-the-scenes of the programming and news divisions at ABC, the backlash from the conservative movement and Religious Right, the challenges encountered by the film's production team, and the experiences of the citizens of Lawrence, Kansas, where the film was set and shot.

Paris, Texas, directed by Wim Wenders and written by Sam Shepard, with adaptation by L.M. Kit Carson, and starring Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, and Hunter Carson, among others. Melinda Camber Porter passed away from ovarian cancer in 2008 and left behind a significant body of work in art, journalism, and literature. With her background as a journalist for The Times of London, her interviews had a unique way of getting to the heart of the creative process.

The CIA in Hollywood offers the first full-scale investigation of the relationship between the Agency and the film and television industries. Tricia Jenkins draws on numerous interviews with the CIA's public affairs staff, operations officers, and historians, as well as with Hollywood technical consultants, producers, and screenwriters who have worked with the Agency, to uncover the nature of the CIA's role in Hollywood.

There have been few times in modern music history that an instant shift in how we listen to - and view - music has occurred. However, the launch of MTV on August 1, 1981, was certainly one such occurrence. Instantly, music fans were now “listening with their eyes” rather than relying solely on their ears.

Noir - as a style, movement, or sensibility - has its roots in hardboiled detective fiction by writers like Chandler and Hammett, and films adapted from their novels were among the first called "film noir" by French cineastes. But film isn't the only medium with a taste for a dark story. Hundreds of noir dramas have been produced for television, featuring detectives and femmes fatales, gangsters, and dark deeds, continuing week after week, with a new disruption of the social order. In TV Noir, television historian Allen Glover presents the first complete study of the subject.

You might not know the name Tyrus Wong, but you probably know many of the images he shaped, including scenes from the beloved Disney classic Bambi. Yet when he came to this country as a child, Tyrus was an illegal immigrant locked up in an offshore detention center. How did he go on to a long and prosperous career drawing animation cels, storyboards, and greeting cards that shaped the American imagination?

गुप्त तळघराचा माग सांगणाऱ्या कोळ्यांना बघून घाबरण्यासाठी रॉन झालेल्या रूपर्ट ग्रिंट याला अजिबातच अभिनय करावा...

The staying power of the world's most dashing secret agent and the evolution of the James Bond franchise are explored in this smart yet nostalgic collection of essays. Leading writers, including Raymond Benson, J.A. Konrath, Raelynn Hillhouse, and John Cox, discuss the 10 sexiest Bond girls, the best villains, and the controversy surrounding the latest actor to play James Bond. Topics covered range from the playful - how to build a secret lair and avoid the perennial mistakes made by would-be world dominators - to the thought-provoking.

In this New York Times bestseller, legendary actor and star of the acclaimed documentary Val shares the stories behind his most beloved roles, reminisces about his star-studded career and love life, and reveals the truth behind his recent health struggles in a remarkably candid autobiography...

This is the Commemorative Edition of one of the most trusted and respected nonfiction books about Walt Disney ever written! Includes 4 commemorative essays and an endnotes section with insightful passages from 15 Disney historians and authors to provide further context for modern audiences. Walt...

Bloomsbury presents Cocktails with George and Martha by Philip Gefter, read by Alexa Morden. "Smart and entertaining . . . Gefter shows why Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? hit the ‘60s like a torpedo." —NPR, Fresh Air "Delicious." —New York Times Book Review The behind-the-scenes story...