Seems you have not registered as a member of localhost.saystem.shop!
You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Sold American
At the turn of the twentieth century, an emerging consumer culture in the United States promoted constant spending to meet material needs and develop social identity and self-cultivation. In Sold American, Charles F. McGovern examines the key players active in shaping this cultural evolution: advertisers and consumer advocates. McGovern argues that even though these two professional groups invented radically different models for proper spending, both groups propagated mass consumption as a specifically American social practice and an important element of nationality and citizenship. Advertisers, McGovern shows, used nationalist ideals, icons, and political language to define consumption as the foundation of the pursuit of happiness. Consumer advocates, on the other hand, viewed the market with a republican-inspired skepticism and fought commercial incursions on consumer independence. The result, says McGovern, was a redefinition of the citizen as consumer. The articulation of an "American Way of Life" in the Depression and World War II ratified consumer abundance as the basis of a distinct American culture and history.
Lost Revolutions
Chronicles the events and societal trends that created disturbance and conflict after World War II, discussing school integration, migration into the cities, the civil rights movement, and the breakdown of traditional values.
Funkiest Man Alive
Rufus Thomas may not be a household name, but he is widely regarded as the patriarch of Memphis R&B, and his music influenced three generations. His first singles in the early 1950s were recorded as blues transitioned into R&B, and he was arguably one of the founding fathers of early rock ’n’ roll. In the early 1960s, his songs “The Dog” and “Walking the Dog” made a huge impact on the emerging British “mod” scene, influencing the likes of the Georgie Fame, the Rolling Stones, and the Who. And in the early 1970s, Thomas rebranded himself as the “funkiest man alive” and recorded funk classics that were later sampled by the likes of Public Enemy, Missy Elliot, and the Wu-Tan...
The Listener's Voice
This text describes how a diverse array of Americans - boxing fans, radio amateurs, down-and-out labourers, small-town housewives, black government clerks and Mexican farmers - participated in the formation of American radio, its genres and its operations.
Holy Day, Holiday
The mass protests that greeted attempts to open the 1893 Chicago World's Fair on a Sunday seem almost comical today in an era of seven-day convenience and twenty-four-hour shopping. But the issue of the meaning of Sunday is one that has historically given rise to a wide range of strong emotions and pitted a surprising variety of social, religious, and class interests against one another. Whether observed as a day for rest, or time-and-a-half, Sunday has always been a day apart in the American week.Supplementing wide-ranging historical research with the reflections and experiences of ordinary individuals, Alexis McCrossen traces conflicts over the meaning of Sunday that have shaped the day in the United States since 1800. She investigates cultural phenomena such as blue laws and the Sunday newspaper, alongside representations of Sunday in the popular arts. Holy Day, Holiday attends to the history of religion, as well as the histories of labor, leisure, and domesticity.
The New Guitarscape in Critical Theory, Cultural Practice and Musical Performance
In The New Guitarscape, Kevin Dawe argues for a re-assessment of guitar studies in the light of more recent musical, social, cultural and technological developments that have taken place around the instrument. The author considers that a detailed study of the guitar in both contemporary and cross-cultural perspectives is now absolutely essential and that such a study must also include discussion of a wide range of theoretical issues, literature, musical cultures and technologies as they come to bear upon the instrument. Dawe presents a synthesis of previous work on the guitar, but also expands the terms by which the guitar might be studied. Moreover, in order to understand the properties and...
Sacred Consumption
This book explores the quasi-religious nature of consumerism and how American Christianity interacts with consumerism. The author uses mixed methods to unpack the nexus between the Christian faith and consumption and how habitual discretionary consumption functions as a pseudo-faith in America.
Blue Vaudeville
This work reveals the often racy, ribald, and sexually charged nature of the vaudeville stage, looking at a broad array of provocative performers from disrobing dancers to nude posers to skimpily dressed athletes. Examining the ways in which big-time vaudeville nonetheless managed to market itself as pure, safe, and morally acceptable, this work compares the industry's marketing and promotional practices to those of other emergent mass-marketers of the vaudeville era in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Included are in-depth examinations of important figures from the vaudeville stage such as Annette Kellerman and Eva Tanguay. The work attempts to address historical context as one means of understanding these performers with an appreciation for their rebelliousness. It discusses censorship and content control in the vaudeville era, and concludes with an analysis of film's part in the fall of vaudeville. Many photographs, cartoons, and other illustrations are included.
