Sport has long been a stage where identity is contested, visibility is earned, and social change takes root.In Boston, the Black athletic body has historically challenged the city's self image as a beacon of liberalism. Boston's Black Athletes: Identity, Performance, and Activism interprets this contested history through the lives and experiences of African American athletes who used their talent as a vehicle for social justice. Editors Robert Cvornyek and ...

The ground has shifted from the days in which "serious history" and "boring" went hand in glove. Textbooks and lectures have their place, but less traditional classrooms can be powerfully immersive and insightful. Take the 1929 Marx Brothers film The Cocoanuts and what it teaches about both the Great Depression and early sound films. The Marx Brothers are among the funniest comedy teams of all time. Four of their 13 films are on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greate...

This encyclopedia traces the evolution of American workers and labor organizations from pre-Revolutionary America through the present day.In 2001, Robert E. Weir's two-volume Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor was chosen as a New York Public Library Best in Reference selection. Weir recently revised this groundbreaking resource, resulting in content that is more accessible, comprehensive, and timely. The newest edition, Workers in America: A His...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Fifth Avenue, Five A.M. and Fosse comes the revelatory account of the making of a modern American masterpieceChinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Its twist ending is the most notorious in American film and its closing line of dialogue the most haunting. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making.In Sam Wasson's telling, it becomes the defining s...

**In this instant New York Times bestseller, America’s top historians set the record straight on the most pernicious myths about our nation’s past“Outstanding… Wonderfully accessible.” —Washington Post**The United States is in the grip of a crisis of bad history. Distortions of the past promoted in the conservative media have led large numbers of Americans to believe in fictions over facts, making constructive dialogue impossible and imperiling our democra...

The author of the New York Times bestseller Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep returns with a lively history of the Academy Awards, focusing on the brutal battles, the starry rivalries, and the colorful behind-the-scenes Hollywood drama.America does not have royalty. It has the Academy Awards. For nine decades, perfectly coiffed starlets, debonair leading men, and producers with gold in their eyes have chased the elusive Oscar. What began as an indu...

From the nineteenth-century textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, to the triumph of unions in the twentieth century and their waning influence today, the contest between labor and capital for the American bounty has shaped our national experience.In this stirring new history, Philip Dray shows us the vital accomplishments of organized labor and illuminates its central role in our social, political, economic, and cultural evolution. His epic, character-driven narrative not only re...

This cultural history is a "well-reported account of the men and women who created the comic book and the backlash of the 1950s that nearly destroyed it" ( Entertainment Weekly ).In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture as we know it was first created—in the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. No sooner had this new culture emerged than it was ...

Have the poor fared best by participating in conventional electoral politics or by engaging in mass defiance and disruption? The authors of the classic Regulating The Poor assess the successes and failures of these two strategies as they examine, in this provocative study, four protest movements of lower-class groups in 20th century America:-- The mobilization of the unemployed during the Great Depression that gave rise to the Workers' Alliance of America-- The industrial str...

Jack Warner epitomized the great Hollywood studio chief. He was admired as much as he was feared, engaged in battles with some of Hollywood's greatest legends from Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney to Olivia de Havilland and Bette Davis. Under his tutelage Warner Bros. gave us some of the most memorable and iconic movies, including The Jazz Singer, Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Damn Yankees and My Fair Lady. Warner was an astute businessman and a prodigious gambler; his footfa...

A compelling look at the movements and developments that propelled America to world dominanceIn this landmark work, acclaimed historian Joshua Freeman has created an epic portrait of a nation both galvanized by change and driven by conflict. Beginning in 1945, the economic juggernaut awakened by World War II transformed a country once defined by its regional character into a uniform and cohesive power and set the stage for the United States’ rise to global dominance. Meanwhile, Fre...

In this new edition of Why Unions Matter, Michael D. Yates shows why unions still matter. Unions mean better pay, benefits, and working conditions for their members; they force employers to treat employees with dignity and respect; and at their best, they provide a way for workers to make society both more democratic and egalitarian. Yates uses simple language, clear data, and engaging examples to show why workers need unions, how unions are formed, how they operate, how c...