Popular History

In 1939, 50 million Americans went to the movies every week, Louis B. Mayer was the highest-paid man in the country, and Hollywood produced 530 feature films a year. One decade and five thousand movies later, the studios were faltering....

Our age is obsessed by the idea of conspiracy. We see it everywhere---from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, from the assassination of Kennedy to the death of Diana. In this age of terrorism we live in, the role of conspiracy is a serious one---one that can fuel radical or fringe elements to violence. For award-winning journalist David Aaronovitch, there came a time when he started to see a pattern among these inflammatory theories.

Idi Amin ruled Uganda between 1971 and 1979, inflicting tremendous violence on the people of the country. How did Amin's regime survive for eight calamitous years? Drawing on recently uncovered archival material, Derek Peterson reconstructs the political logic of the era, focusing on the ordinary people—civil servants, curators and artists, businesspeople, patriots—who invested their energy and resources in making the government work.

Laurel Canyon was the neighborhood perched above the clubs and record companies of Sunset Strip where Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Graham Nash, Cass Elliot, Carole King, Don Henley, and Peter Tork, just to name a few, lived and collaborated to make an indelible mark on our music and our culture.

A Concise Literary English Translation When the day of judgement is nigh, there are those who would say with vehemence that the Qur’an is not from God. However, the Bible does contain passages that portend to the advent of Islam. The only woman in the Bible visited by an angel of the Lord to be told that she would be the mother of a great nation is not the mother of Israel but the mother of Ishmael, Hager. Thereafter Hager is the only woman in the Bible (Genesis 16:13) to afford God a name: El Roy, which means “God sees me” in Hebrew. Moreover, Ishmael, whose mother city is Baca (...

In the gold rush era of Virginia City, Montana, crime was afoot and justice shaky. Lawlessness ran amok in the form of gamblers, saloonkeepers, miners, dance hall girls, and road agents - outlaws who ambushed travelers on the road for a chance to steal precious gold. Of all the road agents, Henry Plummer was their king and elected sheriff. Plummer’s notorious road-agent band terrorized the highways until a group of ordinary citizens resolved to take the responsibility of social governance into their hands.

In the 1970s, Paris fashion exploded like a champagne bottle left out in the sun. Amid sequins and longing, celebrities and aspirants flocked to the heart of chic, and Paris became a hothouse of revelry, intrigue, and searing ambition. At the center of it all were fashion’s most beloved luminaries - Yves Saint Laurent, the reclusive enfant terrible, and Karl Lagerfeld, the flamboyant freelancer with a talent for reinvention - and they divided Paris into two fabulous halves.

Why do otherwise intelligent individuals form seething masses of idiocy when they engage in collective action? We may think that the Great Crash of 1929, junk bonds of the '80s, and over-valued high-tech stocks of the '90s are peculiarly 20th century aberrations, but Mackay's classic - first published in 1841 - shows that the madness and confusion of crowds knows no limits, and has no temporal bounds.

Are we truly destined to live in one happy relationship, till death do us part? Many believe that somewhere out there is our one and only soulmate, and that our love cannot be given to more than one person at a time. This is what we have been taught, but is it true? The Freedom to Choose is a brave book that broaches questions every person, and certainly every couple, should ask themselves. Masha Halevi (PhD), a couples' mediator, counselor and an expert on alternative relationships has decided to take a different path. Following 15 monogamous years with her husband, she is still happily ...

"What should we have for dinner?" To one degree or another, this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat. Anthropologists call it the omnivore's dilemma. Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn't. Today, as America confronts what can only be described as a national eating disorder, the omnivore's dilemma has returned with an atavistic vengeance.

A Popular History of Ireland, a detailed yet comprehensive look at Ireland’s Christian history, was written by Thomas D’Arcy McGee, a Canadian-Irish politician, journalist, and poet, whose private and professional life was as eventful and perilous as many of eras chronicled in this book. Being involved heavily in various Irish Catholic movements, the Irish Confederation, and the Young Irelander Rebellion throughout the mid-19th century, McGee’s insight into Ireland’s past is fascinating.

Livingstone's first book revolutionized the way European readers saw Africa and made him a hero in England. He returned again to the Zambesi with his brother Charles and others, this time with more equipment and funds. Again he faced hippopotami, crocodiles, impossible terrain, and disease, but his greatest enemies on this trip prove to be human. The British eventually lost faith in the expedition, but Livingstone proved in the end to have had tremendous foresight.

One of Oprah Daily's 20 Favorite Books of 2021 Selected as one of Pitchfork's Best Music Books of the Year “One of the best books of its kind in decades.” —The Wall Street Journal An epic achievement and a huge delight, the entire history of popular music over the past fifty years...

From ancient circles to modern supercomputers — the story of the world’s most mysterious number. 🔵 Discover the origins of Pi in ancient Egypt and Babylon — where geometry met mythology. ⚙️ Meet Archimedes, the genius who first calculated Pi with remarkable precision using polygons. 📜 Travel through history as Pi journeys from Greece to India, China, and the Islamic Golden Age. 🧮 Explore breakthroughs from Renaissance mathematicians and the birth of calculus. 💻 See how computers joined the race to calculate Pi to billions — now trillions — of digits. 🎂 Celebrate...

In The Comedians, comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff brings to life a century of American comedy with real-life characters, forgotten stars, mainstream heroes and counterculture iconoclasts. Based on over 200 original interviews and extensive archival research, Nesteroff's groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past 100 years.

Sexological Hypnosis: Overview, History, & Technique pairs the study of human sexuality with the study of hypnotism. This is an informed guide to the basics of using hypnosis for a variety of sexual concerns, written for therapists, counselors, sexologists, sex educators, and professional hypnotists. Sexological Hypnosis is a valuable guide for helping professionals who are gender-inclusive and sex- and pleasure-positive with regard to a wide range of adult consensual behavior. This book is a content-rich, researched-based textbook for Hypnosis for Sex Problems (HSP), an in-depth ...

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, language, and music, as told by our own DNA. In The Disappearing Spoon, bestselling author Sam Kean unlocked the mysteries of the periodic table. In The Violinist's Thumb, he explores the wonders of the...

In The Crowd - A Study of the Popular Mind, social theorist Gustave Le Bon gives historical insight into the political thinking of his era while offering timeless social commentary. Le Bon challenges the listener to contemplate how individual ideas change - often to a destructive end - when employed in a setting of groupthink. As technology and communications innovations make group formation easy and accessible for better or for worse, this book's message is certainly one that will not be lost in the crowd.

We live our lives immersed in name-brand products. It's hard to drive down the street without seeing a plethora of chain restaurants, car dealerships, branded clothing; they're all around us. What most of us don't know is that the origins of many of the most well-known and beloved brands in the world are shrouded in controversy, drug use, and sometimes even addled with blatant racism. A Secret History of Brands cuts through the rumors and urban legends and paints a picture of the true dark history of famous brands.

Martin A. Lee traces the dramatic social history of marijuana, from its origins to its emergence in the 1960s as a defining force in a culture war that has never ceased. Lee describes how the illicit marijuana subculture overcame government opposition and morphed into a dynamic, multibillion-dollar industry. Colorful, illuminating, and at times irreverent, this is a fascinating listen for recreational users and patients, students and doctors, musicians and accountants, Baby Boomers and their kids, and anyone who has ever wondered about the secret life of this ubiquitous herb.