Adam Sandler movies, HBO's Entourage, and such magazines as Maxim and FHM all trade in and appeal to one character-the modern boy-man. Addicted to video games, comic books, extreme sports, and dressing down, the boy-man would rather devote an afternoon to Grand Theft Auto than plan his next career move. He would rather prolong the hedonistic pleasures of youth than embrace the self-sacrificing demands of adulthood.When did maturity become the ultimate tab...

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. For many of us, modern memory is shaped less by a longing for the social customs and practices of the past or for family heirlooms handed down over generations and more by childhood encounters with ephemeral commercial goods and fleeting media moments in our age of fast capitalism. This phenomenon has given rise to communities of nostalgia whose members remain loyal to the toys, television, and music of their youth. They return to the theme parks and pas...

Disrespect in the Contemporary workspace, and Protagonist Marlene discovering her sexuality. Disrespect in 1972 when US Army Vietnam Veterans returned from War, and tossed their ribbons in protest. The US Army represented my workspace, and the Airborne Soldiers (101st, 82nd, 173rd) really felt disrespected. I present the reader with a Contemporary workspace and how Females like our Airborne Soldiers are disrespected.

The twentieth century was, by any reckoning, the age of the child in America. Today, we pay homage at the altar of childhood, heaping endless goods on the young, reveling in memories of a more innocent time, and finding solace in the softly backlit memories of our earliest years. We are, the proclamation goes, just big kids at heart. And, accordingly, we delight in prolonging and inflating the childhood experiences of our offspring. In images of the naughty but nice Buster Brown and the co...

The unqualified victory of consumerism in America was not a foregone conclusion. The United States has traditionally been the home of the most aggressive and often thoughtful criticism of consumption, including Puritanism, Prohibition, the simplicity movement, the '60s hippies, and the consumer rights movement. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, not only has American consumerism triumphed, there isn't even an "ism" left to challenge it. An All-Consuming Century is a rich...

Retired Major John Tiltborough was enjoying his time in the high mountain ranges in the snow and cold hunting for deer. Unbeknown to John, he was about to stumble across a massive child abduction and pornography organisation. After saving three young teenage children he now has to get his old team on side to develop a mission to save hundreds of children. Along the way he encounters romance, and forbidden pleasures from his new Mossad wife. Then the race truly begins to see if John’s exten...

Gary Cross publishes the findings of this largely forgotten study by the Mass-Observers who followed the annual pilgrimage of labourers to Blackpool, hoping to discover what attracted workers to this centre of Victorian culture.

During the first part of the twentieth century thousands of working-class New Yorkers flocked to Coney Island in search of a release from their workaday lives and the values of bourgeois society. On the other side of the Atlantic, British workers headed off to the beach resort of Blackpool for entertainment and relaxation. However, by the middle of the century, a new type of park began to emerge, providing well-ordered, squeaky-clean, and carefully orchestrated corporate entertainment. Con...

Providing a global perspective on the development of American technology, Technology and American Society offers a historical narrative detailing major technological transformations over the last three centuries. With coverage devoted to both dramatic breakthroughs and incremental innovations, authors Gary Cross and Rick Szostak analyze the cause-and-effect relationship of technological change and its role in the constant drive for improvement and modernization. This fully-updated...

Marco Chase is the lead singer for Static, one of the world’s most famous and successful rock bands. Marco’s bad boy rock star image isn’t just one he’s cultivated for his fans—it’s Marco all over. Marco’s past is full of one night stands, bad decisions, and blackouts. Marco never saw a cage he didn’t want to rattle—and from the moment he lays eyes on him, he really wants to rattle sweet, innocent Ben Selden’s cage.Ben Selden comes from a fundamentalist Baptist family. Ben is strug...

Carter Westlake is on the brink of being Hollywood gold. Cast as the lead in a highly-anticipated sci-fi trilogy filming in Australia, he’s primed to be the next A-list action hero: all-American, hot as hell, and straight. The problem is, Carter can only check off two of those boxes. But that’s okay—his bisexuality can remain a secret until these movies are behind him.Childhood educator Noah Jones has a plan. Work as a nanny for six months, make some extra cash, and move t...

AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4A SPECTATOR BEST OF THE YEAR - AS CHOSEN BY REVIEWERSThe year is 1742. Goody Brown, saved from drowning and adopted when just a babe, has grown up happily in the smuggling town of Winchelsea. Then, when Goody turns sixteen, her father is murdered in the night by men he thought were friends.To find justice in a lawless land, Goody must enter the cut-throat world of her father’s killers. With her beloved ...