This exploration of rock 'n' roll music and culture in Birmingham, Alabama, is based on the oral histories of musicians, their fans and professionals in the popular music industry. Collected over a twenty-year period, their stories describe the coming of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s, the rise of the garage bands in the 1960s, of southern rock in the 1970s, and of alternative music in the 1980s and 1990s. Told in the words of the musicians themselves, Magic City Nights provides an insider's v...

James Bond’s amazing gadgets reveal both enthusiasm about technology and fear of its potential ramifications.The popularity of the 007 franchise depends on a seductive formula of sex, violence, and snobbery. Much of its appeal, too, lies in its gadgets: slick, somewhat improbable technological devices that give everyone’s favorite secret agent the edge over his adversaries.In Equipping James Bond, André Millard chronicles a hundred-year history of ...

This look at how changes in the music industry made the Fab Four phenomenon possible "presents a different interpretation of a much-studied topic" ( Essays in Economic and Business History).In this unique study, André Millard argues that, despite the Beatles' indisputable skill, they would not have attained the same global recognition or been as influential without the convergence of significant developments in the way music was produced, recorded, sold, an...

The Rolling Stones: Sociological Perspectives, edited by Helmut Staubmann, draws from a broad spectrum of sociological perspectives to contribute both to the understanding of the phenomenon Rolling Stones and to an in-depth analysis of contemporary society and culture that takes The Stones a starting point. Contributors approach The Rolling Stones from a range of social science perspectives including cultural studies, communication and film studies, gender studies, and the sociology of pop...

A New York Times Best Seller!The classic real-life story of the superspy whose vast intelligence network helped defeat the Nazis in World War II.A Man Called Intrepid is the account of the world’s first integrated intelligence operation and of its master, William Stephenson. Codenamed INTREPID by Winston Churchill, Stephenson was charged with establishing-and running-a vast, worldwide intelligence network to challenge the ...

The definitive biography of The Beatles, hailed as "irresistible" by the New York Times, "riveting" by the Boston Globe, and "masterful" by Time.As soon as The Beatles became famous, the spin machine began to construct a myth -- one that has continued to this day. But the truth is much more interesting, much more exciting, and much more moving -- the highs and the lows, the love and the rivalry, the awe and the jealousy, the drugs, the te...

Hilarious, fascinating, and a roller coaster of dizzying, historical what-ifs, Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids is a potpourri for serious historians and casual history buffs. In one of Phil Mason’s many revelations, you’ll learn that Communist jets were two minutes away from opening fire on American planes during the Cuban missile crisis, when they had to turn back as they were running out of fuel. You’ll discover that before the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon’s painful hemorrhoids prevented...

From the acclaimed biographer who brought you the rock biography of Bruce Springsteen comes the definitive biography of musician Paul McCartney—from his groundbreaking years with the Beatles to Wings to his work as a solo artist and activist.More than a rock star, more than a celebrity,Paul McCartney is a cultural touchstone who helped transform popular music as one half of the legendary Lennon-McCartney songwriting duo. In this definitive biography, Peter Ames Car...

On the night of March 24, 1944, 80 Commonwealth airmen crawled through a 336-foot-long tunnel and slipped into the forest beyond the wire of Stalag Luft III, a German POW compound near Sagan, Poland. The event became known as "The Great Escape," an intricate breakout more than a year in the making, involving as many as 2,000 POWs working with extraordinary co-ordination, intelligence, and daring. Yet within a few days, all but three of the escapees were recaptured. Subsequently, fifty were...

This in-depth look at the Fab Four's final year is a detailed account of the breakup featuring the perspectives of all four band members.Journalist Ken McNab reconstructs for the first time the seismic events of 1969, when The Beatles reached new highs of creativity and new lows of the internal strife that would destroy them. Between the pressure of being filmed during rehearsals and writing sessions for the documentary Get Back, their company Apple Corps ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR • The revelatory account of the pre-fame Beatles—the first volume in a groundbreaking trilogy about the band that revolutionized music“An epic unprecedented in rock ’n’ roll biography . . . And it’s a great read. There’s a surprise on every page.”—MojoDrawing on deep archival access and great firsthand material, premier Beatles historian Merk Lewisohn shoots adren...

That the Beatles were an unprecedented phenomenon is a given. In Can’t Buy Me Love, Jonathan Gould explains why, placing the Fab Four in the broad and tumultuous panorama of their time and place, rooting their story in the social context that girded both their rise and their demise. Nearly twenty years in the making, Can’t Buy Me Love is a masterful work of group biography, cultural history, and musical criticism.Beginning with their adolescence i...