Looks at the development and changing organization of the star system in the American film industry. Tracing the popularity of star performers from the early "cinema of attractions" to the Internet universe, Paul McDonald explores the ways in which Hollywood has made and sold its stars. Through focusing on particular historical periods, case studies of Mary Pickford, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, and Will Smith illustrate the key conditions influencing the star system in silent cinema, the studio era and the New Hollywood.

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Peter Richardson - American Prophet, The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams (2005).jpg

A long-overdue book on the brilliant life and career of one of our greatest public intellectuals, American Prophet will introduce Carey McWilliams to a new generation of readers.

Peter Richardson's absorbing and elegantly paced book reveals a figure thoroughly engaged with the issues of his time. Deftly interweaving correspondence, diary notes, published writings, and McWilliams's own and others' observations on a colorful and influential cast of characters from Hollywood, New York, Washington, DC, and the American West, Richardson maps the evolution of McWilliams's personal and professional life. Among those making an appearance are H. L. Mencken (McWilliams's mentor and role model), Louis Adamic, John Fante, Robert Towne, Richard Nixon, Studs Terkel, J. Edgar Hoover, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Joseph McCarthy.

American Prophet illustrates the arc of McWilliams's life and career from his early literary journalism through his legal and political activism, his stint in state government, and his two decades as editor of the Nation. This book makes the case for McWilliams's place in the Olympian realm of our most influential and prescient political writers.

Peter Richardson is the editorial director at PoliPointPress in Sausalito, California. He is the author or editor of numerous works on language, literature, and California public policy. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California Berkeley.

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Peter Richardson - American Prophet, The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams (2005).pdf

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Reyna Eisenstark - Progressivism (2010).jpg

By the late 19th century, the United States had truly become a modern nation. Some Americans, however, began to notice serious social problems arising from the demands of this new modern society. Shaped by the Temperance Movements, environmental conservation, suffrage, antitrust regulations, and muckraking journalists, the Progressive Era marked the first time American citizens insisted their government do more for the public. Although the Progressive Era eventually ended, the United States continues to benefit from its legacy. Most of the reforms passed during that time are still in effect today, and many have been updated and improved. Future generations have been inspired by the demand for reform in social, political, and economic aspects of society, and other movements, such as the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, arose out of a similar heightened consciousness to bring change to better the lives of all Americans. Progressivismgives students all the background they need on this theme in American history, tracking the beginnings of the ideal through its present-day incarnation.

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Reyna Eisenstark - Progressivism (2010).pdf

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Seymour Morris Jr. - American History Revised, 200 Startling Facts That Never Made It into the Textb ooks (2010).jpg

USA Books - Seymour Morris Jr. - American History Revised, 200 Sta...tling Facts That Never Made It into the Textbooks 2010.jpg

“American History Revised is as informative as it is entertaining and humorous. Filled with irony, surprises, and long-hidden secrets, the book does more than revise American history, it reinvents it.” —James Bamford,
bestselling author of The Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets, and The Shadow Factory

This spirited reexamination of American history delves into our past to expose hundreds ofstartling facts that never made it into the textbooks, and highlights how little-known peopleand events played surprisingly influential roles in the great American story.

We tend to think of history as settled, set in stone, but American History Revised reveals a past that is filled with ironies, surprises, and misconceptions. Living abroad for twelve years gave author Seymour Morris Jr. the opportunity to view his country as an outsider and compelled him to examine American history from a fresh perspective. As Morris colorfully illustrates through the 200
historical vignettes that make up this book, much of our nation’s past is quite different—and far more remarkable—than we thought.
We discover that:

• In the 1950s Ford was approached by two Japanese companies begging for a joint venture. Ford declined their offers, calling them makers of “tin cars.” The two companies were Toyota and Nissan.
• Eleanor Roosevelt and most women’s groups opposed the Equal Rights Amendment
forbidding gender discrimination.
• The two generals who ended the Civil War weren’t Grant and Lee.
• The #1 bestselling American book of all time was written in one day.
• The Dutch made a bad investment buying Manhattan for $24.
• Two young girls aimed someday to become First Lady—and succeeded.
• Three times, a private financier saved the United States from bankruptcy.

Organized into ten thematic chapters, American History Revised plumbs American history’s numerous inconsistencies, twists, and turns to make it come alive again.

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Edward M. Coffman - The War to End All Wars, The A merican Military Experience in World War I (1998).jpg

The War to End All Wars is considered by many to be the best single account of America's participation in World War I. Covering famous battles, the birth of the air force, naval engagements, the War Department, and experiences of the troops, this indispensable volume is again available in paperback for students and general readers.

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Edward M. Coffman - The War to End All Wars, The A merican Military Experience in World War I (1998).chm

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Warmachines No.7 - M998 HMMWV ''Hummer'' and Deriv atives (1991).jpg

106 FULL COLOR DETAIL PHOTOGRAPHS, 36 U.S. ARMY TECHNICAL DRAWINGS This is the seventh installment in the WARMACHINES series, covering details of the M998 "HUMMER" Cargo/Troop Carrier, the M1025 & M1026 Armored Armament Carrier, the M966 Armored TOW Carrier, the M996 2 Litter Armored Ambulance, the M997 4-Litter Armored Ambulance, the M1037 Shelter Carrier, and the M998 "STINGER" Carrier. Used extensively in the 1991 Gulf War, this vehicle is well documented in this publication with excellent photographs of details such as radio equipment, powerplant, suspension, driver's controls, cargo bed, armament, ammunition, stowage, field exercises, and field conversions. Includes wartime photos from the Persian Gulf. A useful photo reference for the military enthusiast, scale modeler, or historian.

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Warmachines No.7 - M998 HMMWV ''Hummer'' and Deriv atives (1991).pdf

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William Inboden - Religion and American Foreign Po licy, 1945-1960, The Soul of Containment (2008).jpg

The Cold War was in many ways a religious war. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower and other American leaders believed that human rights and freedoms were endowed by God, that God had called the United States to defend liberty in the world, and that Soviet communism was especially evil because of its atheism and its enmity to religion. Along with security and economic concerns, these religious convictions also helped determine both how the United States defined the enemy and how it fought the conflict. Meanwhile, American Protestant churches failed to seize the moment. Internal differences over theology and politics, and resistance to cooperation with Catholics and Jews, hindered Protestant leaders domestically and internationally. Frustrated by these internecine disputes, Truman and Eisenhower attempted instead to construct a new civil religion. This public theology was used to mobilize domestic support for Cold War measures, to determine the strategic boundaries of containment, to appeal to people of all religious faiths around the world to unite against communism, and to undermine the authority of communist governments within their own countries.

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William Inboden - Religion and American Foreign Po licy, 1945-1960, The Soul of Containment (2008).pdf

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John A. Garraty, Eric Foner - The Reader's Compani on to American History (1991).jpg

The Reader's Companion to American History offers a fresh, absorbing portrait of the United States from the origins of its native peoples to the nation's complex identity in the 1990s. Covering political, economic, cultural, and social history, and combining hundreds of short descriptive entries with longer evaluative articles, the encyclopedia is informative, engaging, and a pleasure to read. The Reader's Companion is sponsored by the Society of American Historians, an organization dedicated to promoting literary excellence in the writing of biography and history. Under the editorship of the eminent historians John A. Garraty and Eric Foner, a large and distinguished group of scholars, biographers, and journalists -- nearly four hundred contemporary authorities -- illuminate the critical events, issues, and individuals that have shaped our past. More than a reference book to be consulted simply for the dates or details of an event, the Companion offers a history of ideas. It distinguishes itself from conventional encylcopedias by featuring several hundred thematic articles. A chronological account of immigration, for example, is complemented by a conceptual article on ethnicity. Similarly, the Bull Moose party and the Know-Nothings, examined in individual entries, are also placed within a larger context in an article on third parties in American politics. And readers consulting entries on specific religious groups, leaders, and movements will be led to an article offering an overview of religion in America. Linking discrete facts, dates, and events through its interpretive essays, the Reader's Companion presents the overarching themes and ideas that have animated our historical landscape. Over the past twenty years, the study of history has undergone a metamorphosis. Political history, once the primary avenue for exploring the past, has given way to the "new social history." Focus has shifted from key events and leaders to everyday life in America, including the history of the family, women and the work force, race relations, and community life. The Reader's Companion to American History reflects this broader vision of our past. Interweaving traditional political and economic topics with the spectrum of America's social and cultural legacies -- everything from marriage to medicine, crime to baseball, fashion to literature -- the Companion is certain to engage the curiosity, interests, and passions of every reader.

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John A. Garraty, Eric Foner - The Reader's Compani on to American History (1991).rar

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Renee M. Laegreid - Riding Pretty, Rodeo Royalty i n the American West (2006).jpg

When the town of Pendleton, Oregon, held its first large-scale rodeo, it introduced a new kind of rodeo queen not a traveling cowgirl performer but a young, middle-class woman from its own town. Riding Pretty examines the history, evolution, and significance of the community-sponsored rodeo queen, from the introduction of this new phenomenon at the 1910 Pendleton Round-Up to the advent of Miss Rodeo America in 1956, and places the main theme connection of queens to community within the context of the evolution of rodeo as a spectator sport and the changing concepts of gender relations in the American West.
The model for community-sponsored rodeo queens that originated in Pendleton gradually spread to other rodeos throughout the West, giving young women the opportunity to participate both in rodeo and in their communities. From 1910 to 1956, the community-sponsored rodeo queen role expanded, both in terms of her responsibilities and in terms of the community she represented, local, regional, and national. While each community adapted the rodeo queen phenomenon to suit the characteristics of its own celebration, the main characteristics of the role remained: the rodeo queen as a symbol of the local rodeo and as a metaphor for western women.

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Renee M. Laegreid - Riding Pretty, Rodeo Royalty i n the American West (2006).pdf

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Jane Alpert - Growing Up Underground (1990).jpg

I first read this book 8 years ago and not a week goes by when I don't think about it. Sick of the war in Vietnam, Jane Alpert and her boyfriend fall in with a group in the East Village that manufactures bombs which are detonated in the NYC offices of major corporations (luckily, no one was hurt). Albert goes on the lam when the feds close in and spend the next few years; traveling around the country under aliases before finally giving up and serving time in prison. This book is a great no-nonsense look at how the anti-war movement went bad in the late '60s and how certain radicals became so enamoured with themselves that they lost total perspective. Happily, Alpert has no illusions about herself and "the movement," which led some idiots in the radical left to attack her for being so honest and forthright.

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Jane Alpert - Growing Up Underground (1990).pdf

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Edwin H. Ford, Edwin Emery - Highlights in the His tory of the American Press, A Book of Readings (19 54).jpg

The articles collected in this volume present a vivid panorama of American journalistic history from its antecedents in the English ballad singers to the press giants of modern times. Since there is probably no single force that has played a greater role in the history of America than its newspapers, the history of journalism tells, in large measure, the story of this country’s political, social, and economic development. Therefore, this book of readings offers much to the students of the American scene, past and present, whether they are general readers or specialists in journalism, history, American studies, or any of the social sciences. The 27 articles included here have been chosen particularly for their readability and authenticity. They are by many different writers and are from a wide variety of periodicals published over the past 100 years. They are arranged according to six historical periods, covering the rise of the English press, the Colonial press, the nationalistic press of Revolutionary times, the popular press of the Jacksonian democracy, the transition press following the Civil War, and the modern era of mass circulation. An introductory essay for each group of articles places the individual studies in historical perspective and examines briefly the journalistic events not covered in detail by the articles themselves. The article authors include such notable names in American letters as Gamaliel Bradford, Will Irwin, William Allen White, John Dos Passos, and Henry F. Pringle. The coherent presentation of this diverse material should help anyone interested in the American newspaper get a better view of its broad scope, its lively color, and its profound influence on the course of history.

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Edwin H. Ford, Edwin Emery - Highlights in the His tory of the American Press, A Book of Readings (19 54).pdf

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Barry Keith Grant - Film genre, From iconography t o ideology (2007).jpg

This is a concise evaluation of film genre, discussing genre theory and sample analyses of the western, science fiction, the musical, horror, comedy, and the thriller. It introduces the topic in an accessible way and includes sections on the principles of studying and understanding "the idea of genre"; genre and popular culture; the narrative and stylistic conventions of specific genres; the relations of genres to culture and history, race, gender, sexuality, class and national identity; and the complex relations between genre and authorship. Case studies include: 42nd Street, Pennies from Heaven, Red River, All That Heaven Allows, Night of the Living Dead, Die Hard, Little Big Man, Blue Steel, and Posse.

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Barry Keith Grant - Film genre, From iconography t o ideology (2007).pdf

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Bill O'Reilly - A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity (20 10).jpg

The year was 1957, the month September, and I had just turned eight years old. Dwight Eisenhower was President, but in my life it was the diminutive, intense Sister Mary Lurana who ruled, at least in the third-grade class where I was held captive. For reasons you will soon understand, my parents had remanded me to the penal institution of St. Brigid’s School in Westbury, New York, a cruel and unusual punishment if there ever was one.

Already, I had barely survived my first two years at St. Brigid’s because I was, well, a little nitwit. Not satisfied with memorizing the Baltimore Catechism’s fine prose, which featured passages like “God made me to show his goodness and to make me happy with him in heaven,” I was constantly annoying my classmates and, of course, the no-nonsense Sister Lurana. With sixty overactive students in her class, she was understandably short on patience. For survival, she had also become quick on the draw.

Then it happened. One day I blurted out some dumb remark, and Sister Lurana was on me like a panther. Her black habit blocked out all distractions as she leaned down, looked me in the eye, and uttered words I have never forgotten: “William, you are a bold, fresh piece of humanity.”

And she was dead-on.

One day in 1957, in the third-grade classroom of St. Brigid’s parochial school, an exasperated Sister Mary Lurana bent over a restless young William O’Reilly and said, “William, you are a bold, fresh piece of humanity.” Little did she know that she was, early in his career as a troublemaker, defining the essence of Bill O’Reilly and providing him with the title of his brash and entertaining issues-based memoir.

And this time it’s personal. In his most intimate book yet, O’Reilly goes back in time to examine the people, places, and experiences that launched him on his journey from working-class kid to immensely influential television personality and bestselling author. Readers will learn how his traditional outlook was formed in the crucible of his family, his neighborhood, his church, and his schools, and how his views on America’s proper role in the world emerged from covering four wars on five continents over three-plus decades as a news correspondent. What will delight his numerous fans and surprise many others is the humor and self-deprecation with which he handles one of his core subjects: himself, and just how O’Reilly became O’Reilly.

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Driving Visions - Exploring the Road Movie (2002).jpg

In 1934, audiences swooned when reporter Clark Gable and heiress Claudette Colbert bickered and then fell in love on a cross-country bus trip in It Happened One Night, an early American road trip movie. America's vast open spaces, colorful and varied locations, multicultural population, and love for cars, mobility, and speed make the road movie a peculiarly (though not exclusively) American fixture. This book is an academic study of American road movies as a "rebellion against conservative social norms" with "an embrace of the journey as a means of cultural critique." The emphasis here is on "outlaw" road movies. Laderman (film, Coll. of San Mateo) discusses literary sources and visions (On the Road), gay road movies (My Own Private Idaho), Native American films (Smoke Signals), and African American (Get on the Bus) and feminist road journeys. He dismisses most comedies, saying they fail to "incorporate any visionary rebellion." Indeed, the author's tone is humorless throughout. His complaint about "heavy-handed" irony in Raising Arizona, for instance, seems to be based on the fact that the irrepressible Coen brothers failed to follow his vision of what a road movie should be. There are some provocative ideas here, but Laderman's rigid approach causes the book to run out of gas. An optional purchase for large American film collections.

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Driving Visions - Exploring the Road Movie (2002).pdf

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Mary Ann Doane - The Desire to Desire, The Woman's Film of the 1940s (1987).jpg

What is female spectatorship? When Hollywood films are geared for an audience of women, what ideals do they tend to promote? How should feminist theory contend with the image of women that the cinema passes on? In The Desire to Desire Mary Ann Doane responds to these questions, focusing specifically on "woman's pictures" of the 1940s. She argues that while most of the films she discusses are conceived through lenses that are masculine in nature, feminists attempting to critique these films should not dismiss them as sexist or attempt to develop a way of seeing that is simply the opposite of the one handed down. Instead, Doane offers a critique of vision itself, contrasting the way the camera views the women in these films, the way the films' female characters look out onto their worlds, and the way the Hollywood movie industry manufactures images that it expects female audiences to consume.

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Mary Ann Doane - The Desire to Desire, The Woman's Film of the 1940s (1987).pdf

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Michael Gray - The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (2005).jpg

Bob Dylan’s reach is too wide, too deep and too long for any book about him to cover it all. He’s a senior citizen. His career spans 45 years of American history! Naturally, though, it is Bob Dylan’s art that is the heart of the book: it is his art that has got inside our heads, has changed the world around us and justifies his being paid so much attention.

If in 100 years’ time Dylan’s art goes unheard and discounted, well, in 200 years’ time it may bounce back. If not, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia might help some scholar of the future to sift through the rusted nuts and bolts of our mistaken enthusiasm. We can’t know...

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Nicholas Daniloff - Of Spies and Spokesmen, My Lif e As a Cold War Correspondent (2008).jpg

In this riveting memoir, Daniloff describes the reality of journalism behind the Iron Curtain: how Western reporters banded together to thwart Soviet propagandists, how their official sources were almost always controlled by the KGB--and how those sources would sometimes try to turn newsmen into collaborators. When Daniloff was arrested and thrown into prison as a spy, the incident threatened to undo the Reykjavik summit until a solution was worked out. Daniloff also tells how the news media played a crucial role in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis, recalls the emotional impact of the JFK assassination on Soviet leadership, and describes the behind-the-scenes struggles that catapulted Mikhail Gorbachev to power.

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