Catalog Search Results
Author
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
A history of the uniquely American art form of improv, from its beginnings during the McCarthy Era through the rise of such institutions as Second City, the Groundlings, and the Upright Citizens Brigade and such performers as Tina Fey, Steve Carell, and Bill Murray.
"From the best-selling author of Fosse, a sweeping yet intimate-- and often hilarious-- history of a uniquely American art form that has never been more popular. At the height of the...
Author
Language
English
Description
For generations an international symbol of freedom, danger, rebellion, and hedonism, the electric guitar had an explosive impact on music and culture. Now Tolinski and di Perna tell the story of its inventors and iconoclasts, of scam artists, prodigies, and mythologizers as varied and original as the instruments they spawned. They use twelve landmark guitars-- each of them artistic milestones in their own right-- to illustrate the conflict and passion...
Author
Publisher
Viking
Pub. Date
[2020]
Language
English
Description
"In a world where rational, scientific explanations are more available than ever, belief in the unprovable and irrational--in fringe--is on the rise: from Atlantis to aliens, from Flat Earth to the Loch Ness monster, the list goes on. It seems the more our maps of the known world get filled in, the more we crave mysterious locations full of strange creatures. Enter Colin Dickey, Cultural Historian and Tour Guide of the Weird. With the same curiosity...
Author
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Formats
Description
Tracing the history of California's world of wine and how passion for the liquid some have called "the elixir of the gods" has driven people to extremes, a riveting narrative exposes the violent and obsessive world underneath the oh-so-laid-back label of the California wine trade.
"On October 12, 2005, a massive fire broke out in the Wines Central wine warehouse in Vallejo, California. Within hours, the flames had destroyed 4.5 million bottles of...
Author
Publisher
Soft Skull Press, an imprint of Counterpoint
Pub. Date
2015
Language
English
Description
"In Stranger Than We Can Imagine, John Higgs argues that before 1900, history seemed to make sense. We can understand innovations like electricity, agriculture and democracy. The twentieth century, in contrast, gave us relativity, cubism, quantum mechanics, the id, existentialism, Stalin, psychedelics, chaos mathematics, climate change and postmodernism. In order to understand such a disorienting barrage of unfamiliar and knotty ideas, Higgs shows...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Gloria Steinem had an itinerant childhood. Every fall, her father would pack the family into the car and they would drive across the country, in search of their next adventure. The seeds were planted: Steinem would spend much of her life on the road, as a journalist, organizer, activist, and speaker. In vivid stories that span an entire career, Steinem writes about her time on the campaign trail, from Bobby Kennedy to Hillary Clinton; her early exposure...
Author
Publisher
Penguin Press
Pub. Date
2018
Language
English
Description
"A brilliant recasting of the turning points in world history, including the one we're living through, as a struggle between old power hierarchies and new social networks. Most history is hierarchical: it's about popes, presidents, prime ministers and other potentates. It's about states, armies and corporations. It's about orders from on high. But what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on?...
Author
Language
English
Description
"As America's Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television cameras focused on the brave smiles of their young wives. Overnight, these women were transformed from military spouses into American royalty. They had tea with Jackie Kennedy, appeared on the cover of Life magazine, and quickly grew into fashion icons. Annie Glenn, with her picture-perfect marriage, was the envy of the other wives; platinum-blonde Rene Carpenter...
Author
Publisher
W.W. Norton & Company Inc
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
"Most of us give little thought to the back of the book-it's just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. Here, for the first time, is the...
Author
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Pub. Date
[2021]
Language
English
Description
"Undercurrents teaches readers and activists how to invest time, talent, voice, and cash to improve the world by detailing six of the largest macrotrends shaping the world today. Those 6 macrotrends are: The world is becoming a diamond (the shift in the distribution of wealth) Communities are the customer Digital technology is a bridge; not a divide The last mile is no longer the hardest (the greatest need and hardest work lies not at the beginning...
Author
Publisher
Basic Books
Pub. Date
[2023]
Language
English
Description
"In The Overlooked Americans, public policy expert Elizabeth Currid-Halkett breaks through stereotypes about rural America. She traces how small towns are doing as well as, or better than, cities by many measures. She also shows how rural and urban Americans share core values, from opposing racism and upholding environmentalism to believing in democracy. When we focus too heavily on the far-right fringe, we overlook the millions of rural Americans...
Author
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
"The English and Their History presents the momentous story of England "first as an idea, and then as a kingdom, as a country, a people and a culture." Here, in a single volume, is a fresh and comprehensive account of the English and their history. With extraordinary insight, Robert Tombs examines language, literature, law, religion, politics, and more while investigating the sources of England's collective memory and belief. The English and Their...
Author
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"As a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement, Shaun King has become one of the most recognizable and powerful voices on the front lines of civil rights in our time. His commitment to reforming the justice system and making America a more equitable place has brought challenges and triumphs, soaring victories and crushing defeats. Throughout his wide-ranging activism, King's commentary remains rooted in both exhaustive research and abundant passion....
Author
Publisher
Pegasus Books
Pub. Date
2019.
Language
English
Description
An intelligent and authoritative history of opium--a drug that has both healed and harmed since the beginning of civilization. Poppy tears, opium, heroin, fentanyl: humankind has been in thrall to the "Milk of Paradise" for millennia. The latex of papaver somniferum is a bringer of sleep, of pleasurable lethargy, of relief from pain--and hugely addictive. A commodity without rival, it is renewable, easy to extract, transport, and refine, and subject...
Author
Publisher
Henry Holt and Company
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
A tour of history's worst plagues -- from the Antonine Plague to leprosy to polio -- and a celebration of the heroes who fought them. In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon 34 more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had died from the mysterious dancing plague. In late-seventeenth-century England an eccentric gentleman...
Author
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Pub. Date
[2021]
Language
English
Description
"Plagues upon the Earth is a history of human civilization and the germs that have shaped its course. At every stage in our species' past, micro-organisms have had macro-effects on the development of human societies. Kyle Harper proposes the first history of human disease to make full use of a radical new source of evidence: pathogen genomes as a biological archive and window into prehistoric times. We can now begin to reconstruct the natural history...
Author
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
"Germany is unlike any other country in the world. But how much do we really know about it, and how do its people understand themselves? In Germany: Memories of a Nation, Neil MacGregor -- director of the British Museum and author of A History of the World in 100 Objects -- presents the stories of a nation through a collection of thirty objects and touchstones. From coins and crowns to fairy tales and philosophers, MacGregor presents the inventions,...
Author
Publisher
Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
"Horses and humans share an ancient, profoundly complex relationship. Once our most indispensable companions, horses were for millennia essential in helping build our cities, farms, and industries. But during the twentieth century, in an increasingly mechanized society, they began to disappear from human history. In this esoteric and rich tribute, [the author] chronicles the dramatic story of this most spectacular creature, thoroughly examining how...
Author
Publisher
Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
"A rich and passionate biography of a language and the dream of world harmony it sought to realize. In 1887, Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, a Polish Jew, had the idea of putting an end to tribalism by creating a universal language, one that would be equally accessible to everyone in the world. The result was Esperanto, a utopian scheme full of the brilliance, craziness, and grandiosity that characterize all such messianic visions. In this first full history...
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