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Image one: E-book titled Punks in Peoria: Making a Scene in the American Heartland - synopsis: Synonymous with American mediocrity, Peoria, Illinois, was fertile ground for the boredom- and anger-fueled fury of punk rock. Jonathan Wright and Dawson Barrett explore the do-it-yourself scene built by Peoria punks, performers, and scenesters in the 1980s and 1990s. From fanzines to indie record shops to renting the VFW hall for an all-ages show, Peoria's punk culture reflected the movement elsewhere, but the city's conservatism and industrial decline offered a richer-than-usual target environment for rebellion. Eyewitness accounts take readers into hangouts and long-lost venues, while interviews with the people who were there trace the ever-changing scene and varied fortunes of local legends like Caustic Defiance, Dollface, and Planes Mistaken for Stars. What emerges is a sympathetic portrait of a youth culture in search of entertainment but just as hungry for community--the shared sense of otherness that, even for one night only, could unite outsiders and discontents under the banner of music.
Image two: E-book titled Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer - synopsis: Though ubiquitous today, available as a single microchip and found in any electronic device requiring sound, the synthesizer when it first appeared was truly revolutionary. Something radically new--an extraordinary rarity in musical culture--it was an instrument that used a genuinely new source of sound: electronics. How this came to be--how an engineering student at Cornell and an avant-garde musician working out of a storefront in California set this revolution in motion--is the story told for the first time in Analog Days, a book that explores the invention of the synthesizer and its impact on popular culture. The authors take us back to the heady days of the 1960s and early 1970s, when the technology was analog, the synthesizer was an experimental instrument, and synthesizer concerts could and did turn into happenings.
Image one: E-book titled Music Is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice, and the Will To Change - synopsis: Popular music has long been a powerful force for social change. Protest songs have served as anthems regarding war, racism, sexism, ecological destruction, and so many other crucial issues. Music Is Power takes us on a guided tour through the past one hundred years of politically conscious music, from Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie to Green Day and NWA. Covering a wide variety of genres, including reggae, country, metal, psychedelia, rap, punk, folk, and soul, Brad Schreiber demonstrates how musicians can take a variety of approaches-- angry rallying cries, mournful elegies to the victims of injustice, or even humorous mockeries of authority--to fight for a fairer world. While shining a spotlight on Phil Ochs, Gil Scott-Heron, the Dead Kennedys and other seminal, politicized artists, he also gives readers a new appreciation of classic acts such as Lesley Gore, James Brown, and Black Sabbath, who overcame limitations in their industry to create politically potent music.
Image two: E-book titled We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War - synopsis: In We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Doug Bradley and Craig Werner place popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam. They explore how and why U.S. troops turned to music as a way of connecting to each other and the World back home and of coping with the complexities of the war they had been sent to fight. They also demonstrate that music was important for every group of Vietnam veterans--black and white, Latino and Native American, men and women, officers and "grunts"--whose personal reflections drive the book's narrative.
Image one: E-book titled Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City (2015) - synopsis: Beginning after World War I, Houston was transformed from a black-and-white frontier town into one of the most ethnically and racially diverse urban areas in the United States. Houston Bound draws on social and cultural history to show how, despite Anglo attempts to fix racial categories through Jim Crow laws, converging migrations—particularly those of Mexicans and Creoles—complicated ideas of blackness and whiteness and introduced different understandings about race. This migration history also uses music and sound to examine these racial complexities, tracing the emergence of Houston’s blues and jazz scenes in the 1920s as well as the hybrid forms of these genres that arose when migrants forged shared social space and carved out new communities and politics.
Image two: E-book titled Civil Rights in the Texas Borderlands: Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon and Black Activism (2015) - synopsis: In 1907, physician Lawrence A. Nixon fled the racial violence of central Texas to settle in the border town of El Paso. There he became a community and civil rights leader. His victories in two Supreme Court decisions paved the way for dismantling all-white political primaries across the South. Will Guzmán delves into Nixon’s lifelong struggle against Jim Crow.
Image one: E-book titled Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan-African Solidarity (2014) - synopsis: Africa in Stereo analyzes how Africans have engaged with African American music and its representations in the long twentieth century (1890-2011) to offer a new cultural history attesting to pan-Africanism’s ongoing and open theoretical potential. Tsitsi Jaji argues that African American popular music appealed to continental Africans as a unit of cultural prestige, a site of pleasure, and most importantly, an expressive form already encoded with strategies of creative resistance to racial hegemony.
Image two: E-book titled Sacred Steel: Inside an African American Steel Guitar Tradition (2010) - synopsis: In this book, Robert L. Stone follows the sound of steel guitar into the music-driven Pentecostal worship of two related churches: the House of God and the Church of the Living God. A rare outsider who has gained the trust of members and musicians inside the church, Stone uses nearly two decades of research, interviews, and fieldwork to tell the story of a vibrant musical tradition that straddles sacred and secular contexts. Most often identified with country and western bands, steel guitar is almost unheard of in African American churches—except for the House of God and the Church of the Living God, where it has been part of worship since the 1930s.
Image one: E-book titled Indigenous Pop: Native American Music from Jazz to Hip Hop (2016) - synopsis: Popular music compels, it entertains, and it has the power to attract and move audiences. With that in mind, the editors of Indigenous Pop showcase the contributions of American Indian musicians to popular forms of music, including jazz, blues, country-western, rock and roll, reggae, punk, and hip hop. Arranged both chronologically and according to popular generic forms, the book gives Indigenous pop a broad new meaning.
Image two: E-book titled I Am Where I Come From: Native American College Students and Graduates Tell Their Life Stories (2017) - synopsis: I Am Where I Come From presents the autobiographies of thirteen Native American undergraduates and graduates of Dartmouth College, ten of them current and recent students. The autobiographies contained in this book explore issues of native identity, adjustment to the college environment, cultural and familial influences, and academic and career aspirations.
Image one: E-book titled Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-Language Radio and Public Advocacy (2014) - synopsis: The last two decades have produced continued Latino population growth, and marked shifts in both communications and immigration policy. Since the 1990s, Spanish-language radio has dethroned English-language radio stations in major cities across the United States, taking over the number one spot in Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, and New York City. Investigating the cultural and political history of U.S. Spanish-language broadcasts throughout the twentieth century, Sounds of Belonging reveals how these changes have helped Spanish-language radio secure its dominance in the major U.S. radio markets.
Image two: E-book titled The Revolutionary Imaginations of Greater Mexico: Chicana/o Radicalism, Solidarity Politics, and Latin American Social Movements (2016) - synopsis: Bringing to life the stories of political teatristas, feminists, gunrunners, labor organizers, poets, journalists, ex-prisoners, and other revolutionaries, The Revolutionary Imaginations of Greater Mexico examines the inspiration Chicanas/os found in social movements in Mexico and Latin America from 1971 to 1979. Drawing on fifteen years of interviews and archival research, including examinations of declassified government documents from Mexico, this study uncovers encounters between activists and artists across borders while sharing a socialist-oriented, anticapitalist vision.
Image one: E-book titled The Chicana/o Hip Hop Nation: Politics of a New Millennial Mestizaje (2013) - synopsis: Far from antiquated concepts of mestizaje, recent scholarship has shown that Mexicana/o and Chicana/o culture is a mixture of indigenous, African, and Spanish and other European peoples and cultures. No one reflects this rich blend of cultures better than Chicano/a rappers, whose lyrics and iconography can help to deepen our understanding of what it means to be Chicano/a or Mexicano/a today. While some identify as Mexican mestizos, others identify as indigenous people or base their identities on their class and racial/ethnic makeup. No less significant is the intimate level of contact between Chicano/as and black Americans. Via a firm theoretical foundation, Pancho McFarland explores the language and ethos of Chicano/a and Mexicano/a hip hop and sheds new light on three distinct identities reflected in the music: indigenous/Mexica, Mexican nationalist/immigrant, and street hopper.
Image two: E-book titled Mexicana Fashions: Politics, Self-Adornment, and Identity Construction (2020) - synopsis: Collecting the perspectives of scholars who reflect on their own relationships to particular garments, analyze the politics of dress, and examine the role of consumerism and entrepreneurialism in the production of creating and selling a style, Mexicana Fashions examines and searches for meaning in these visible, performative aspects of identity.
Image one: E-book titled Indigenous Pop: Native American Music from Jazz to Hip Hop (2016) - synopsis: Popular music compels, it entertains, and it has the power to attract and move audiences. With that in mind, the editors of Indigenous Pop showcase the contributions of American Indian musicians to popular forms of music, including jazz, blues, country-western, rock and roll, reggae, punk, and hip hop. From Joe Shunatona and the United States Indian Reservation Orchestra to Jim Pepper, from Buffy Saint-Marie to Robbie Robertson, from Joy Harjo to Lila Downs, Indigenous Pop vividly addresses the importance of Native musicians and popular musical genres, establishing their origins and discussing what they represent.
Image two: E-book titled How Mockingbirds Are: O'odham Ritual Orations (2011) - synopsis: The power of mockingbirds and the enduring significance of indigenous ceremonial speeches are deftly revealed in this brilliant analysis of ritual orations created and delivered by the O'odham people (also known as the Pima-Papago) who lived along the Akimel rivers and across the arid expanses and mountains of the desert of southern Arizona and northern Sonora. Drawing upon a rich reservoir of O'odham oral traditions and ceremonial performances, a meticulous deciphering of particular texts, and an insightful assessment of the impact of Christianity upon the O'odham people, Donald Bahr offers a brilliant analysis of why some indigenous stories cease to be relevant and told.
Image one: E-book titled Mexicana Fashions: Politics, Self-Adornment, and Identity Construction (2020) - synopsis: Collecting the perspectives of scholars who reflect on their own relationships to particular garments, analyze the politics of dress, and examine the role of consumerism and entrepreneurialism in the production of creating and selling a style, Mexicana Fashions examines and searches for meaning in these visible, performative aspects of identity.
Image two: E-book titled The Chicana/o Hip Hop Nation: Politics of a New Millennial Mestizaje (2013) - synopsis: Far from antiquated concepts of mestizaje, recent scholarship has shown that Mexicana/o and Chicana/o culture is a mixture of indigenous, African, and Spanish and other European peoples and cultures. No one reflects this rich blend of cultures better than Chicano/a rappers, whose lyrics and iconography can help to deepen our understanding of what it means to be Chicano/a or Mexicano/a today. While some identify as Mexican mestizos, others identify as indigenous people or base their identities on their class and racial/ethnic makeup. No less significant is the intimate level of contact between Chicano/as and black Americans. Via a firm theoretical foundation, Pancho McFarland explores the language and ethos of Chicano/a and Mexicano/a hip hop and sheds new light on three distinct identities reflected in the music: indigenous/Mexica, Mexican nationalist/immigrant, and street hopper.
Image one - E-book titled Weird American Music: Case Studies of Underground Resistance, BarlowGirl, Jackalope, Charles Ives, and Waffle House Music (2018) - synopsis: Examines a tension in certain expressions of American music and music communities since the 1980s between the artists’ striving for authenticity in the values they want to communicate on the one hand, and the demands of the marketplace on the other. The results are “weird” in both the economic and artistic sense.
Image two - E-book titled The Telegraph in America, 1832-1920 (2013) - synopsis: A complete history of how the telegraph revolutionized technological practice and life in America. Telegraphy in the nineteenth century approximated the internet in our own day. Historian and electrical engineer David Hochfelder offers readers a comprehensive history of this groundbreaking technology, which employs breaks in an electrical current to send code along miles of wire. The Telegraph in America, 1832-1920 examines the correlation between technological innovation and social change and shows how this transformative relationship helps us to understand and perhaps define modernity.
Image three - E-book titled The CIA in Ecuador (2021) - synopsis: Draws on recently released US government surveillance documents on the Ecuadorian left to chart social movement organizing efforts during the 1950s. Emphasizing the competing roles of the domestic ruling class and grassroots social movements, this book details the struggles and difficulties that activists, organizers, and political parties confronted.
Image one - E-book titled Harnessed to the Pole: Sledge Dogs in Service to American Explorers of the Arctic, 1853-1909 (2014) - synopsis: Harnessed to the Pole follows the adventures of eight American explorers and their dog teams, starting with Elisha Kent Kane and ending with Robert Peary, controversial claimant of the title of first to reach the North Pole. While history has long forgotten these “little camels of the north,” Sheila Nickerson reveals how critical dogs were to the Arctic conquest. Besides providing transportation in extreme conditions, sledge dogs protected against wolves and polar bears, helped in hunting, found their way through storms, and provided warmth in extreme cold. They also faced rough handling, starvation, and the possibility of being left behind as expeditions plunged ahead. Harnessed to the Pole is an extraordinary—and unflinching—look at the dogs that raced to the top of the world.
Image two - E-book titled We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (2015) - synopsis: In We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Doug Bradley and Craig Werner place popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam. They explore how and why U.S. troops turned to music as a way of connecting to each other and the World back home and of coping with the complexities of the war they had been sent to fight. They also demonstrate that music was important for every group of Vietnam veterans—black and white, Latino and Native American, men and women, officers and 'grunts'—whose personal reflections drive the book's narrative.
Image three - E-book titled Born To Be Wild: The Rise of the American Motorcyclist (2015) - synopsis: In 1947, 4,000 motorcycle hobbyists converged on Hollister, California. As images of dissolute bikers graced the pages of newspapers and magazines, the three-day gathering sparked the growth of a new subculture while also touching off national alarm. Author Randy D. McBee narrates the evolution of motorcycle culture since World War II, examining the rebelliousness of early riders of the 1940s and 1950s, riders‘ increasing connection to violence and the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s, the rich urban bikers of the 1990s and 2000s, and the factors that gave rise to a motorcycle rights movement.
Image one: E-book titled Orchestrating Public Opinion: How Music Persuades in Television Political Ads for U.S. Presidential Campaigns, 1952-2016 (2018) - synopsis: Analysis of political advertising tends to give music short shrift - which flies in the face of what we know about the power of music to set a mood, affect feelings, and influence our perceptions. This book is the first to offer a detailed exploration of the role of music in US presidential campaign advertising, from Eisenhower to the present, showing that in many cases music isn't simply one element in the presentation of an ad's message - it's the dominant factor, more important than images, words, or narration.
Image two: E-book titled Detached: Building Houses in Postwar Suburbia (2015) - synopsis: Detached America is the first book with a national scope to explore the design and marketing of postwar houses. James A. Jacobs shows how these houses physically document national trends in domestic space and record a remarkably uniform spatial evolution that can be traced throughout the country. This vast and long-lived collaboration between government and business—fueled by millions of homeowners—established the financial mechanisms, consumer framework, domestic ideologies, and architectural precedents that permanently altered the geographic and demographic landscape of the nation.
Image one: E-book titled American Founders: How People of African Descent established Freedom in the New World (2018) - synopsis: Reveals men and women of African descent as key protagonists in the story of American democracy. It chronicles how Black people developed and defended New World settlements, undermined slavery, and championed freedom throughout the Americas from the 16th through the 20th century.
Image two: E-book titled We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (2015) - synopsis: Places popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam. This book explores how and why U.S. troops turned to music as a way of connecting to each other and the World back home and of coping with the complexities of the war they had been sent to fight. It also demonstrates that music was important for every group of Vietnam veterans -- black and white, Latino and Native American, men and women, officers and 'grunts' -- whose personal reflections drive the book's narrative.
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Image one: E-book titled Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science (2011) - synopsis: The explorations within Beyond the Finite range from the images taken by the Hubble Telescope to David Bohm's quantum romanticism, from Kant and Burke to a "downward spiraling infinity" of the 21st century sublime, all lucid yet transcendent. Squarely positioned at the interface between science and art, this volume's chapters capture a remarkable variety of perspectives, with neuroscience, chemistry, astronomy, physics, film, painting and music discussed in relation to the sublime experience, topics surely to peak the interest of academics and students studying the sublime in various disciplines.
Image two: E-book titled Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (2015) - synopsis: Medieval robots took such forms as talking statues, mechanical animals, and silent metal guardians; some served to entertain or instruct while others performed disciplinary or surveillance functions. Variously ascribed to artisanal genius, inexplicable cosmic forces, or demonic powers, these marvelous fabrications raised fundamental questions about knowledge, nature, and divine purpose in the Middle Ages. Medieval Robots recovers the forgotten history of fantastical, aspirational, and terrifying machines that captivated Europe in imagination and reality between the ninth and fourteenth centuries.
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Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the grandmother of rock and roll, quote reading, "All this new stuff they call rock and roll, why, I've been playing that stuff for years now."
Image one: E-book titled I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915 (2017) - synopsis: As the author details, boxers bought into American ideas about masculinity and free enterprise to prove their equality while using their bodies to become self-made men. The African American middle class, meanwhile, grappled with an expression of public black maleness they saw related to disreputable leisure rather than respectable labor. Moore shows how each fighter conformed to middle-class ideas of masculinity based on his own judgment of what culture would accept.
Image two: E-book titled The Black Musician and the White City: Race and Music in Chicago, 1900-1967 (2014) - synopsis: Amy Absher’s The Black Musician and the White City tells the story of African American musicians in Chicago during the mid-twentieth century. While depicting the segregated city before World War II, Absher traces the migration of black musicians, both men and women and both classical and vernacular performers, from the American South to Chicago during the 1930s to 1950s.
