Download or read book American Epic written by Bernard MacMahon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The companion book to the groundbreaking PBS and BBC documentary series celebrating the pioneers and artists of American roots music—blues, gospel, folk, Cajun, Appalachian, Hawaiian, Native American—without which there would be no jazz, rock, country R&B, or hip hop today. Jack White, T. Bone Burnett, and Robert Redford have teamed up to executive produce American Epic, a historical music project exploring the pivotal recording journeys of the early twentieth century, which for the first time captured the breadth of American music and made it available to the world. It was, in a very real way, the first time America truly heard herself. In the 1920s and 1930s, as radio took over the pop music business, record companies were forced to leave their studios in major cities in search of new styles and markets. Ranging the mountains, prairies, rural villages, and urban ghettos of America, they discovered a wealth of unexpected talent—farmers, laborers, and ethnic minorities playing styles that blended the intertwining strands of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. These recordings form the bedrock for modern music as we know it, but during the Depression many record companies went out of business and more than ninety percent of the fragile 78 rpm discs were destroyed. Fortunately, thanks to the continuing efforts of cultural detectives and record devotees, the stories of America’s earliest musicians can finally be told. Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty, who directed and produced the documentary with American musician Duke Erikson, spent years traveling around the US in search of recollections of those musical pioneers. Their fascinating account, written with the assistance of prize-winning author Elijah Wald, continues the journey of the series and features additional stories, never-before-seen photographs, and unearthed artwork. It also contains contributions from many of the musicians who participated including Taj Mahal, Nas, Willie Nelson, and Steve Martin, plus a behind-the-scenes look at the incredible journey across America. American Epic is an extraordinary testament to our country’s musical roots, the transformation of our culture, and the artists who gave us modern popular music.
Download or read book Some Sort of Epic Grandeur written by Matthew J. Bruccoli and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Epic indeed, this is the definitive biography of Fitzgerald, plain and simple. There’s no reason to own another.” —Library Journal The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” These works and more elevated F. Scott Fitzgerald to his place as one of the most important American authors of the twentieth century. After struggling to become a screenwriter in Hollywood, Fitzgerald was working on The Last Tycoon when he died of a heart attack in 1940. He was only forty-four years old. Fitzgerald left behind his own mythology. He was a prince charming, a drunken author, a spoiled genius, the personification of the Jazz Age, and a sacrificial victim of the Depression. Here, Matthew J. Bruccoli strips away the façade of this flawed literary hero. He focuses on Fitzgerald as a writer by tracing the development of his major works and his professional career. Beginning with his Midwest upbringing and first published works as a teenager, this biography follows Fitzgerald’s life through the successful debut of This Side of Paradise, his turbulent marriage to Zelda Sayre, his time in Europe among The Lost Generation, the disappointing release of The Great Gatsby, and his ignominious fall. As former US poet laureate James Dickey said, “the spirit of the man is in the facts, and these, as gathered and marshalled by Bruccoli over thirty years, are all we will ever need. But more important, they are what we need.”
Download or read book Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines written by Henrietta Heald and published by Unbound Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Women have won their political independence. Now is the time for them to achieve their economic freedom too.’ This was the great rallying cry of the pioneers who, in 1919, created the Women’s Engineering Society. Spearheaded by Katharine and Rachel Parsons, a powerful mother and daughter duo, and Caroline Haslett, whose mission was to liberate women from domestic drudgery, it was the world’s first professional organisation dedicated to the campaign for women's rights. Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines tells the stories of the women at the heart of this group – from their success in fanning the flames of a social revolution to their significant achievements in engineering and technology. It centres on the parallel but contrasting lives of the two main protagonists, Rachel Parsons and Caroline Haslett – one born to privilege and riches whose life ended in dramatic tragedy; the other who rose from humble roots to become the leading professional woman of her age and mistress of the thrilling new power of the twentieth century: electricity. In this fascinating book, acclaimed biographer Henrietta Heald also illuminates the era in which the society was founded. From the moment when women in Britain were allowed to vote for the first time, and to stand for Parliament, she charts the changing attitudes to women’s rights both in society and in the workplace.
Download or read book Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon written by Elizabeth Fenton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the sacred text of a modern religious movement of global reach, The Book of Mormon has undeniable historical significance. That significance, this volume shows, is inextricable from the intricacy of its literary form and the audacity of its historical vision. This landmark collection brings together a diverse range of scholars in American literary studies and related fields to definitively establish The Book of Mormon as an indispensable object of Americanist inquiry not least because it is, among other things, a form of Americanist inquiry in its own right--a creative, critical reading of "America." Drawing on formalist criticism, literary and cultural theory, book history, religious studies, and even anthropological field work, Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon captures as never before the full dimensions and resonances of this "American Bible."
Download or read book Fury of Past Time written by Daryl Leeworthy and published by Parthian Books. This book was released on 2023-05-25 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Leeworthy set out to write a biography which fully reflects the complexity of Thomas' life, especially foregrounding 'the political character of Gwyn's character and creative output' but he does so much more, expanding the reader's knowledge by giving us not just the life but also the times... This punchy portrait of a real Welsh literary heavyweight hits home with the brutal realism of Thomas' jabbing prose and mordant wit.' – Jon Gower, Nation.Cymru 'Fury of Past Time is a model of its kind. An immense amount of research has gone into this biography, which will be the standard work on Gwyn Thomas for many years to come. It deserves to be read by those who already admire the fiction and will be an invaluable introduction for anyone coming to his writing for the first time.' – John Barnie (A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Books Council of Wales) 'Leeworthy knows his subject intimately, sympathises with him entirely, and locates him globally in such a way as to leave the reader with no doubt as to his importance as a writer... Fury of Past Time is destined to be the definitive work on 'the Rhondda Runyon' for many years to come.' – Bethan Jenkins, Wales Arts Review Gwyn Thomas was born, the last of twelve children, into a Rhondda mining family in 1913. After a childhood marked by the strikes of the 1920s, he went off to study Spanish at Oxford University and in Madrid, where he met the poet Federico García Lorca and witnessed the turmoil which would lead to the Spanish Civil War. On his return, amidst the economic mire of the 1930s and his own burgeoning teaching career in Barry in the 1940s, he picked up his pen and began to write. For more than forty years, until his death in 1981, as novelist, screenwriter, master of the short story, and prizewinning playwright, Gwyn Thomas delivered compelling and comedic portraits of his world of South Wales. His creative genius earned enduring fame on both sides of the Atlantic and on both sides of the European Cold War divide. As a provocative and insightful broadcaster, he embraced the possibilities of radio and television, whilst leaving his hosts and guests alike in fits of knowing laughter. This landmark biography, enriched with unrivalled access to private papers and international archives, tells the remarkable story of one of modern Wales's greatest literary voices.
Download or read book Constructs of home in Gloria Naylor s Quartet written by Claudia Drieling and published by Königshausen & Neumann. This book was released on 2011 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Savage Wars of Peace written by Max Boot and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the major conflicts in American history have become all too familiar, America’s “small wars” have played an essential but little-appreciated role in the country’s growth as a world power. First published in 2002, The Savage Wars of Peace quickly became a key volume in the case for a new policy of interventionism. Max Boot shows how America’s smaller actions—such as the recent conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Afghanistan—have made up the vast majority of our military engagements, and yet our armed forces do little to prepare for these “low intensity conflicts.” A compellingly readable history of the forgotten wars that helped promote America’s rise in the last two centuries, The Savage Wars of Peace is now updated with new material on the repercussions of America’s far-flung imperial actions and the impact of these ventures in American international affairs.
Download or read book Leginska written by Marguerite Broadbent and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book I Know a Woman written by Kate Hodges and published by Quarto Publishing Group USA. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Behind every great woman . . . is another great woman. Discover the connections between eighty-four female pioneers in art, politics, sports, aviation, science, and more . . . Threading tales from across the globe and throughout history, this inspiring book reveals the lives of innovative aviatrixes, gun-toting revolutionaries, extraordinary athletes, women with incomparable intellects, and more. Each woman is connected to the next, bringing to light the women behind the scenes—those who didn’t get the credit for scientific discoveries, sporting achievements, or acts of bravery in their lifetimes. Some names will be familiar, some might not, but all are equally important. With compelling storytelling and beautifully illustrated portraits, I Know a Woman is bold and engaging with a unique purpose: to uncover the links between eighty-four pioneering women and show the indomitable strength of womankind—through the stories of Michelle Obama, Virginia Woolf, Gala Dalí, Emma Watson, Nina Simone, Billie Jean King, Frida Kahlo, Marie Curie, Georgia O’Keeffe, Greta Garbo, Eleanor Roosevelt, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Malala Yousafzai, and many more pioneering women who have shaped the world we live in today.
Download or read book Albert Gleizes written by Peter Brooke and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gleizes was also one of the few French painters of the 1920s to recognise nonrepresentational painting as the logical development of Cubism." "His work as a painter is accompanied by an immense body of theoretical work, addressing the question posed so starkly by Duchamp and Picabia: why should we paint? What is the justification for the work of art? Over his life he touches on many spheres of human activity - religious, political and cultural history, physics and the philosophy of work.".
Download or read book The Plays of Ernst Toller written by Cecil Davies and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the fullest and most detailed study yet published in English of Ernst Toller's plays and their most significant productions. In particular the productions directed by Karl-Heinz Martin, Jurgen Fehling and Erwin Piscator are closely analyzed and the author demonstrates how, brilliant though they were, they obscured or even distorted Toller's intentions. The plays are seen as eminently stage-worthy while worth lies in Toller's use of language, both in prose and inverse. The neglected puppet-play The Scorned Lovers' Revenge is analyzed from a new perspective in the light, both of its language and its sexual theme, so important in Toller's writings as a whole. The reader is led to appreciate why Toller was regarded as the most outstanding German dramatist of his generation until, after his death in 1939 his reputation was overlaid by that of Brecht. This book should do much to restore Toller to his proper place in theatre history.
Download or read book Sahara written by Michael Palin and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2005-07 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The comedian and author presents a detailed exploration of the Sahara Desert regions that celebrates its diverse cultures, landscapes, and trades.
Download or read book Bertolt Brecht written by Philip Glahn and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2014-03-15 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A playwright, poet, and activist, Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) was known for his theory of the epic theater and his attempts to break down the division between high art and popular culture. He was also a committed Marxist who lived through two world wars and a global depression. Looking at Brecht’s life and works through his plays, stories, poems, and political essays, Philip Glahn illustrates how they trace a lifelong attempt to relate to the specific social, economic, and political circumstances of the early twentieth century. Glahn reveals how Brecht upended the language and gestures of philosophers, beggars, bureaucrats, thieves, priests, and workers, using them as weapons in his work. Following Brecht through the Weimar Republic, Nazism, exile, and East German Socialism, Glahn argues that the writer’s own life became a production of history that illuminates an ongoing crisis of modern experience shaped by capitalism, nationalism, and visions of social utopia. Sharp, accessible, and full of pleasures, this concise biography will interest anyone who wishes to know about this pivotal modern dramatist.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema written by Gino Moliterno and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2008-09-29 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema provides a better understanding of the role Italian cinema has played in film history through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, appendixes, black-&-white photos, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on actors, actresses, movies, producers, organizations, awards, film credits, and terminology.
Download or read book The A to Z of Italian Cinema written by Gino Moliterno and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2009-10-12 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Italian cinema is regarded as one of the great pillars of world cinema. Films like Ladri di biciclette (1948), La dolce vita (1960), and Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988) attracted unprecedented international acclaim and a reputation, which only continue to grow. Italian cinema has produced such acting legends as Sophia Loren and Roberto Benigni, as well as world-renowned filmmakers like Federico Fellini, Sergio Leone, Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Lina WertmYller, the first woman to ever be nominated for the Best Director award. The A to Z of Italian Cinema provides a better understanding of the role Italian cinema has played in film history through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, appendixes, black-&-white photos, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on actors, actresses, movies, producers, organizations, awards, film credits, and terminology.
Download or read book The Poems of T S Eliot Volume I written by T. S. Eliot and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 1216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first volume of the first paperback edition of The Poems of T. S. Eliot This two-volume critical edition of T. S. Eliot’s poems establishes a new text of the Collected Poems 1909–1962, rectifying accidental omissions and errors that have crept in during the century since Eliot’s astonishing debut, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” In addition to the masterpieces, The Poems of T. S. Eliot contains the poems of Eliot’s youth, which were rediscovered only decades later; poems that circulated privately during his lifetime; and love poems from his final years, written for his wife, Valerie. Calling upon Eliot’s critical writings as well as his drafts, letters, and other original materials, Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue have provided a commentary that illuminates the imaginative life of each poem. This first volume respects Eliot’s decisions by opening with his Collected Poems 1909–1962 as he arranged and issued it shortly before his death. This is followed by poems uncollected but either written for or suitable for publication, and by a new reading text of the drafts of The Waste Land. The second volume opens with the two books of verse of other kinds that Eliot issued: Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and Anabasis, his translation of St.-John Perse’s Anabase. Each of these sections is accompanied by its own commentary. Finally, pertaining to the entire edition, there is a comprehensive textual history that contains not only variants from all known drafts and the many printings but also extended passages amounting to hundreds of lines of compelling verse.
