Modern American Culture

What do Native American stories, modern belief, and pop culture all have in common? Bigfoot. In Voices for Sasquatch, author and cultural anthropologist Sharon Eby explores the deep-rooted Indigenous knowledge and oral traditions surrounding Sasquatch, alongside modern interpretations and cultural shifts. This powerful volume gives voice to Native American contributors, reservation sightings, and regional place-names while examining how Bigfoot belief reflects identity, spirituality, and resistance. Through thoughtful analysis and guest insights from researchers like Henry Franzoni and ...

Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture illustrates how the spaces between tiles and the moments between games have fostered distinct social cultures in the United States. This mass-produced game crossed the Pacific, creating waves of popularity over the 20th century. Annelise Heinz narrates the history of this game to show how it has created a variety of meanings, among them American modernity, Chinese American heritage, and Jewish American women's culture.

The story of Miles' career is the story of the golden age of jazz. It is the story of the transition from big bands to small ensembles. It is the story of developing and exploring improvised music in small combos: trios, quartets, quintets, and sextets. Miles was at the forefront of every major style and genre of jazz that took place over a rapidly maturing arc from just after World War II through the sixties. This period was twenty-five years of explosive creativity and accelerated musical development. The breadth and depth of Miles’ impact, influence, and creative output are staggering....

Born McKinley Morganfield in the mud of Mississippi, Muddy Waters rose from sharecropper fields to electrify the world. His journey from the Delta to Chicago traced the great migration of a people and the birth of a genre. This book offers the first fully realized documentary biography of the man whose guitar and voice turned human struggle into modern art. Drawing from archival interviews, recording logs, festival transcripts, and field reports, it follows Muddy’s path from Alan Lomax’s 1941 field recordings through the Chess Records years, international tours, and late-life resurgence...

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote there are no second acts in American lives. Miles proved him wrong. Miles was back in New York City and good health in 1955. In the summer of 1955, Miles performed a noted set at the Newport Jazz Festival. His performance, especially his solo on the Thelonius Monk tune Round Midnight was widely praised, prompting critics to welcome the "return of Miles Davis." Columbia Records executive George Avakian approached Miles and offered a contract with the label if he could form a regular band with a steady lineup. Miles assembled his first regular quintet to meet a ...

In America’s biggest circus, the clowns wear power ties — and the audience keeps buying tickets. The Joke’s On Us is part roast, part reckoning, and part survival guide for anyone trying to stay sane in the age of weaponized outrage. With the wit of a late-night comic and the precision of a political analyst, Sam Rourke dissects the modern spectacle where every scandal is a meme, every headline a punchline, and every politician an auditioning performer. Through sharp, hilarious storytelling, Rourke takes readers on a journey through the absurdities of American politics — from ...

Cameron Mitchell’s “dish room to boardroom story” began when he was 16-years-old and started working as a dishwasher at a local steakhouse in Columbus, Ohio. Two years later, when Mitchell was working as a line cook during a chaotic shift change, he had an epiphany. He realized he loved the restaurant business and set out to make it his lifelong career. He knew he wanted to be the president of a restaurant company, one day.

What happens when Americans lose faith in their religious institutions—and politicians fill the void? From the Puritans to Donald Trump, this sweeping history will change your understanding of the forces that create leaders and hold their followers captive. “Elegant and insightful...

Born in Tampa in 1931 and raised amid the rhythms of the Black South, Nat Adderley rose from church bands and college marching fields to shape the sound of modern jazz. As the cornetist and composer behind classics like “Work Song” and “Jive Samba,” he became both an innovator and a steward of America’s musical conscience. This definitive biography traces his extraordinary arc—from early performances with his brother Cannonball to decades on the road refining the voice that bridged gospel, blues, and bebop. Through meticulous research and narrative depth, Nat Adderley: ...

Driven by eyewitness accounts and combining urban history with a life-and-death drama and a technological detective story, Floodpath grippingly reanimates the reality behind LA noir fictions like the classic film Chinatown. In an era of climate change, increasing demand on water resources, and a neglected American infrastructure, the tragedy of the St. Francis Dam has never been more relevant.

Percy Heath lived at the intersection of discipline and grace. From his beginnings in Wilmington, North Carolina, through his service with the Tuskegee Airmen, and his rise to prominence as bassist of the Modern Jazz Quartet, Heath’s life traced the story of American jazz itself—dignified, complex, and quietly revolutionary. Drawing from archival interviews, performance histories, and firsthand accounts, this documentary-grade biography follows Heath from his youth in a musical family through the decades that defined him: the postwar Philadelphia scene, the rise of bebop, and the ...

Today it is widely recognized that gay men played a prominent role in defining the culture of mid-20th-century America, with such icons as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Montgomery Clift, and Rock Hudson defining much of what seemed distinctly "American" on the stage and screen. Even though few gay artists were "out," their sexuality caused significant anxiety during a time of rampant anti-homosexual attitudes.

What do the Spartans, Samurai, Shaolin monks, early Christian ascetics, and Native American warriors all have in common? Across continents and centuries, these warrior traditions discovered the same hidden truth: that solitude and celibacy are not weaknesses - but powerful weapons in the forging of discipline, resilience, and inner strength. In Solitude and Celibacy in Warrior Cultures, you’ll journey through the training grounds, monasteries, deserts, and battlefields where history’s fiercest warriors tested their minds and bodies against hardship, hunger, and desire. From the Spartan ...

This book testifies of two truths: First, the modern American culture war, all of it, was lost over 25 years ago and, second, the good guys lost. A majority of Americans now have chosen evil over good. The cult of personal autonomy has created uncivilized chaos. Virtue is gone, so order is gone. Objectification and dehumanization express the heart of American culture. Our social institutions now serve a wholly secular society. Our lives are no longer lived commensurately. Americans have lost their sense of transcendence and, each in their own way, have crucified an effectual God. And yet ...

John Lee Hooker’s music didn’t just define the blues—it redrew the map of American rhythm. John Lee Hooker: Boogie’s Relentless Prophet traces the full arc of his life, from his 1917 birth near Clarksdale, Mississippi, to his rise as one of the most influential musicians in modern history. Grounded in archival research and eyewitness accounts, this biography reveals how a preacher’s son transformed hardship and motion into sound that never stopped moving. Through vivid scenes and precise chronology, the book follows Hooker’s migration from Delta fields to Detroit factories, ...

Born in 1923 Los Angeles and raised in the heart of jazz’s Golden Age, Dexter Gordon rose from a gifted teenager to one of the most commanding tenor saxophonists in history. Dexter Gordon: Bebop’s Towering Tenor traces his extraordinary life from Central Avenue’s thriving music scene to the bebop revolution of 52nd Street, from years of exile in Europe to his triumphant return to the American stage. Drawing from newly preserved archives, recording notes, and firsthand accounts, this definitive biography offers a panoramic view of Gordon’s artistry. Readers follow his journey through...

From the dance halls of Depression-era Milwaukee to the world’s grandest stages, Woody Herman: The Herd’s Tireless Leader traces the relentless rhythm of a man who kept swing alive through six tumultuous decades of American music. This documentary-grade biography follows Herman’s life in full arc—from his vaudeville childhood and rise through the big-band boom to his postwar innovations that fused bebop and blues into a modern jazz vocabulary. Grounded in archival research and first-hand accounts, the book reveals how Herman built not just a band but a musical community. Readers ...

Thelonious Monk transformed twentieth-century sound by making silence sing and rhythm think. The Mysterious Genius traces his extraordinary journey from a North Carolina childhood to the electrified pulse of Harlem and the concert stages of the world. Through archival depth and musical insight, the book reveals how Monk turned structure into swing and dissonance into beauty. Drawing from decades of recordings, interviews, and historical accounts, it captures the discipline behind the eccentricity—the composer who built architecture out of melody, who balanced humor with intellect, and who...

From Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to Glenn Beck and Matt Drudge, Americans think of right-wing media as integral to contemporary conservatism. But today's well-known personalities make up the second generation of broadcasting and publishing activists. Messengers of the Right tells the story of the little-known first generation. Beginning in the late 1940s, activists working in media not only started an array of enterprises - publishing houses, radio programs, magazines, book clubs, television shows - they also built the American conservative movement.

Pioneering historian, sociologist, editor, novelist, poet, and organizer, W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the foremost African American intellectuals of the 20th century. While Du Bois is remembered for his monumental contributions to scholarship and civil rights activism, the spiritual aspects of his work have been misunderstood, even negated. W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet, the first religious biography of this leader, illuminates the spirituality that is essential to understanding his achievements.