A fresh guide to classical music from the acclaimed creator of NPR's "What Makes It Great"™Rob Kapilow has been helping audiences hear more in great music for two decades with his What Makes It Great? series on NPR's Performance Today, at Lincoln Center, and in concert halls throughout the US and Canada. In this book, he focuses on short masterpieces by major composers to help you understand the essence of each composer's genius and how each piece...

Finalist • The Marfield Prize [National Award for Arts Writing]“Not since the late Leonard Bernstein has classical music had a combination salesman-teacher as irresistible as Kapilow.” —Kansas City Star“If you want to understand American history, listen to its popular music,” writes renowned NPR host Rob Kapilow. “If you want to understand America’s popular music, listen to its history.” Through the songs of eight legendary America...

Rob Kapilow has been helping audiences hear more in great music for almost twenty years with his What Makes It Great? series on NPR, at Lincoln Center, and in concert halls throughout the US and Canada. In this book, he gives you a set of tools you can use when listening to any piece of music in order to hear its “plot”—its story told in notes. The musical examples are available free for download to help you hear the ideas presented. Whether you are an experienced concertgoer or a...

Few people in recent memory have dedicated themselves as devotedly to the story of twentieth-century American music as Rob Kapilow, the composer, conductor, and host of the hit NPR music radio program, What Makes It Great? Now, in Listening for America, he turns his keen ear to the Great American Songbook, bringing many of our favorite classics to life through the songs and stories of eight of the twentieth century's most treasured American composers—Kern, Porter, Gershwi...

During a sixty-eight year career, conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957) was famed for his fierce dedication, photographic memory, explosive temper, and impassioned performances. At various times he dominated La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the NBC Symphony, and the Bayreuth, Salzburg, and Lucerne festivals. His reforms influenced generations of musicians, and his opposition to Nazism and Fascism made him a model for artists of conscience. Thanks to unprecedent...

George C. Daughan's magnificently detailed account of the battle of Lexington and Concord will challenge the prevailing narrative of the American War of Independence. It was, Daughan argues, based as much on economics as on politics. When Benjamin Franklin wrote home about living conditions in Britain and Ireland, his countrymen were appalled. Could the Crown's motive be to reduce the prosperous American colonies to such serfdom? This idea inspired the vast turnout of Patriot militiamen at...

**Finalist • George Washington Book PrizeNew York Times Book Review • Editors’ ChoiceFinally revealing the family’s indefatigable women among its legendary military figures, The Howe Dynasty recasts the British side of the American Revolution.**In December 1774, Benjamin Franklin met Caroline Howe, the sister of British General Sir William Howe and Richard Admiral Lord Howe, in a London drawing room for “half a dozen Games of Chess.” But as historia...

The first biography of the great Shawnee leader in more than twenty years, and the first to make clear that his misunderstood younger brother, Tenskwatawa, was an equal partner in the last great pan-Indian alliance against the United States.Until the Americans killed Tecumseh in 1813, he and his brother Tenskwatawa were the co-architects of the broadest pan-Indian confederation in United States history. In previous accounts of Tecumseh's life, Tenskwatawa has been ...

**“A lively tale of historical innovation, the thrill of the bibliophile’s hunt, greed and betrayal.” – The New York Times Book Review"An addictive and engaging look at the ‘competitive, catty and slightly angst-ridden’ heart of the world of book collecting.” - The Houston ChronicleThe never-before-told story of one extremely rare copy of the Gutenberg Bible, and its impact on the lives of the fanatical few who were lucky enough to own it.**For rar...

The author of the classic The Dream of Reason vividly explains the rise of modern thought from Descartes to Rousseau.

An extraordinary story of faith and violence in nineteenth-century America, based on previously confidential documents from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, often treated as fringe cultists or marginalized polygamists unworthy of serious examination. In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park excavates the brief, tragic life of a lost Mormon city, demonstrating that the Mormons are ...

Why does writing exist? What does it mean to those who write? Born from the interplay of natural and cultural history, the seemingly magical act of writing has continually expanded our consciousness. Portrayed in mythology as either a gift from heroes or a curse from the gods, it has been used as both an instrument of power and a channel of the divine; a means of social bonding and of individual self-definition. Now, as the revolution once wrought by the printed word gives way to the digit...