Television History

Television shows have now eclipsed films as the premier form of visual narrative art of our time. This new book by one of our finest critics explains—historically, in depth, and with interviews with the celebrated creators themselves—how the art of must-see/binge-watch television evolved...

Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad? Is Cheers better than Seinfeld? What's the best high school show ever made? Why did Moonlighting really fall apart? Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible? For twenty years-since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano's hometown...

Startlingly honest and unsentimental, Television for Women explores the realities of life postpartum, the demands children make on women’s identities and relationships—and the desperate lengths someone might go to in order to reclaim the person she once was.

He was written off. Impeached twice. Indicted multiple times. Defeated in 2020. Yet, on November 5, 2024, Donald J. Trump achieved the unthinkable – a political comeback of historic proportions, reclaiming the White House against staggering odds. Donald Trump the comeback of the 47th President is the definitive account of one of the most extraordinary journeys in American political history. Following his tumultuous exit from office and facing an unprecedented barrage of legal challenges and establishment opposition, Trump refused to fade away. This book chronicles the meticulous, often ...

The Chosen: Come and See is the second installment of The Chosen books, a series of novels based on the global video phenomenon The Chosen. This book follows season 2 and contains not only the stories told in the video series, but also compelling back stories, thoughts, and motivations of key characters which will give the listener fresh insights that cannot be gained by just watching the video series.

A chat about the American sitcoms of the 1960s. Individual sitcoms are discussed year-by-year throughout the decade based on the year they debutted.

The resurgence of viral clips from the long-running hit reality television show America’s Next Top Model left fans and foes alike wondering–how did a show so outrageous and at times offensive ever get on the air? For years, Americans dutifully watched as contestants faced uncomfortable situations regarding their race and gender, body-shaming, stereotyping, and problematic photoshoots. The show, which first premiered in 2003 and ran for 24 cycles, was helmed by supermodel Tyra Banks–the first Black female host of a smash network reality show.

A fascinating look at Hollywood’s most turbulent decade and the demise of the studio system—set against the boom of the post–World War II years, the Cold War, and the atomic age—and the movies that reflected the seismic shifts “The definitive book on 1950s Hollywood.” —Booklist...

In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, and how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think. As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given less and less expression in the form of the printed word, they are rapidly being reshaped to suit the requirements of television.

From Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body and a writer who “has brilliantly illuminated the Black experience in America for decades” (Bryan Stevenson), comes a spirited and riveting memoir of growing up in an interracial family in 1960s Chicago and a daughter’s journey to...

The rollicking saga of reality television, a “sweeping” (The Washington Post) cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker writer—“a must-read for anyone interested in television or popular culture”...

In this exceptional cultural history, Atlantic Senior Editor Ronald Brownstein—“one of America's best political journalists (The Economist)—tells the kaleidoscopic story of one monumental year that marked the city of Los Angeles’ creative peak, a glittering moment when popular culture...

“Vitally important, devastatingly thorough, and shockingly revealing…. After reading Primetime Propaganda, you’ll never watch TV the same way again.” — Mark Levin Movie critic Michael Medved calls Ben Shapiro, “One of our most refreshing and insightful voices on the popular culture...

Love it or hate it, television is a very revealing window into Japanese society. In this multi-faceted collection, Penn, a professional couch potato for a quarter century, looks at the first six decades of Japanese TV. Topics include: the ABC's of samurai dramas and the saga of Korean dramas in Japan, Juzo Itami's last TV documentary, the impact of March 11, 2011 on the TV world, Japanese-style reality shows and why so many Japanese comedians turn to politics. Three new chapters have been added to this updated, e-book edition of "The Couch Potato's Guide to Japan," a trusty guidebook for a ...

The untold stories of seven revolutionary teen shows (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, My So-Called Life, Dawson’s Creek, Freaks and Geeks, The O.C., Friday Night Lights, and Glee) that shaped the course of modern television and our pop cultural landscape forever. The modern television landscape...

Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, ER, Cheers, Law & Order, Will & Grace…Here is the funny, splashy, irresistible insiders’ account of the greatest era in television history -- told by the actors, writers, directors, producers, and the network executives who made it happen…and watched it all fall...

Few American television series are as deeply entrenched in twentieth-century popular culture as M*A*S*H, a Korean War medical comedy characterized by its dark tone and finesse in tackling serious social and political issues. By the end of its run, M*A*S*H had been a mainstream hit for several seasons and won fourteen Emmys, leading it to be called, "the most popular pre-Seinfeld series in television history." In this comprehensive study of M*A*S*H, David Scott Diffrient analyzes the series' contextual issues such as its creation, reception, and circulation as well as textual issues like its formal innovations, narrative strategies, and themes.

For the first time, the complete history of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks—from the landmark, original cult series that changed the course of television to its 25-years-in-the-making sequel—is told through fascinatingly detailed reporting and exclusive interviews with the show's...

The Back to the Past senseis were killing them in the ratings. So the sensory channel decided to do their own. They couldn't afford the variances to send the primitive back without their consent, so they had to have a contract with the primitive. To be sure they would get the contract they chose a primitive who was about to die of natural causes. Dan Baker was having a stroke so he didn't have many options. They assigned the project to Orgaet a producer of scripted dramas. An Artist. It was a punishment for going over budget. Orgaet hated the project and wanted it to fail fast so he could ...

Greg Gutfeld, five-time New York Times bestselling author and host of the #1 rated late night show Gutfeld!, returns with a witty and tongue-in-cheek essay collection that is part memoir and part political manifesto. Greg Gutfeld is back with a hilarious essay collection about how he destroyed...