Entertainment History

Beneath the stylized violence and thrilling car crashes, the Mad Max films consider universal questions about the nature of human life, order and anarchy, justice and moral responsibility, society and technology, and ultimately, human redemption. In Mad Max and Philosophy, a diverse team of political scientists, historians, and philosophers investigates the underlying themes of the blockbuster movie franchise, following Max as he attempts to rebuild himself and the world.

On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran and captured dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day ordeal and a quake in global politics still reverberating today. But there's a little-known footnote to the crisis: six Americans escaped. And a midlevel agent named Antonio Mendez devised an ingenious yet incredibly risky plan to rescue them. Armed with foreign film visas, Mendez and an unlikely team of CIA agents and Hollywood insiders traveled to Tehran....

Kendrick Lamar is one of the most influential rappers, songwriters and record producers of his generation. Widely known for his incredible lyrics and powerful music, he is regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time. In Promise That You Will Sing About Me, pop culture critic and music journalist Miles Marshall Lewis explores Kendrick Lamar’s life, his roots, his music, his lyrics, and how he has shaped the musical landscape.

John Mauceri brings a lifetime of experience to bear in an unprecedented, hugely informative, consistently entertaining exploration of his profession, rich with anecdotes from decades of working alongside the greatest names of the music world. With candor and humor, Mauceri makes clear that conducting is itself a composition: of legacy and tradition, techniques handed down from master to apprentice - and more than a trace of ineffable magic.

Steely Dan's songs are exercises in fictional world-building. No one else in the classic-rock canon has conjured a more vivid cast of rogues and heroes, creeps and schmucks, lovers and dreamers and cold-blooded operators-or imbued their characters with so much humanity.

In this wholly original work of film criticism, David Thomson, celebrated author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film, probes the many ways in which sexuality has shaped the movies - and the ways in which the movies have shaped sexuality.

This is the fascinating story of music. How it started with a song and became one of our most beloved arts. Learn how early composers added modal rhythm to religious chants and turned them into something greater. Discover how the printing press standardized music and helped it spread across the globe. Witness the birth of musical theater, opera, and classical music and the explosion of popular freeform music such as rhapsodies and preludes.

One of the most successful music acts of all time, Dire Straits filled stadiums around the world. Their albums sold hundreds of millions of copies and their music - classics like “Sultans of Swing”, “Romeo and Juliet", “Money for Nothing”, and “Brothers in Arms” - is still played on every continent today. There was, quite simply, no bigger band on the planet throughout the '80s. In this powerful and entertaining memoir, founding member John Illsley gives the inside track on the most successful rock band of their time.

This is the first comprehensive history of goth music and culture. John Robb explores the origins and legacy of this enduring scene, which has its roots in the post-punk era. Featuring sound and original music, and read by the author in his distinctive narrative style, this is a truly atmospheric audiobook that takes you right into the heart of the history of goth.

Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art - The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise.

How did your grandparents have fun? How did people listen to music in the 1950s? When did color television become popular? What toys were popular in the 1970s? Find all the answers and more in this book about how entertainment has changed since the 1950s.

Situated in a barren desert landscape, Las Vegas exists for one reason—water. Popular as a waystation for travelers, the Las Vegas Valley attracted the attention of railroad visionaries at the end of the 19th century. After purchasing land from a local widow, the developers laid out a town in 1905. Vegas hasn’t slowed down since.

A lively and colorful biography of Hollywood's first superagent - one of the most outrageous showbiz characters of the 1960s and 1970s, whose clients included Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Faye Dunaway, Michael Caine, and Candice Bergen. Before Sue Mengers hit the scene in the mid-1960s, talent agents remained quietly in the background. But staying in the background was not possible for Mengers.

Before Picasso became Picasso—the iconic artist now celebrated as one of France's leading figures—he was constantly surveilled by the police. Amidst political tensions in the spring of 1901, he was flagged as an anarchist by the security services. Though he soon became the leader of the cubist avant-garde, and became increasingly wealthy as his reputation grew worldwide, Picasso's art was largely excluded from public collections in France for the next four decades.

First biography of the great actress in a brilliant interpretation of Danuta Stenka. One-hundred-two years of fascinating life, turbulent career, and dramatic turns in history. Gabriel Michalik paints a subtle portrait of the legend of the theatre and cinema, the people she met, and the era through which she lived with natural elegance, grace, and unusual cheerfulness, in spite of dramatic obstacles.

With unforgettable performances such as Moses in The Ten Commandments, the anguished astronaut George Taylor in 1968's Planet of the Apes, and the eponymous Ben-Hur - for which he won an Academy Award - Charlton Heston cemented his place in the pantheon of 20th-century Hollywood royalty. But his fame as an actor was matched by his political activism. A Democrat in his early years, Heston became a staunch supporter of Richard Nixon and Reagan Republicanism.

John Wayne projected dignity, integrity, and strength in all his films, even when his characters were flawed, and whatever character he played was always prepared to confront injustice in his own way. More than thirty years after his death, he remains the standard by which male stars are judged and an actor whose morally unambiguous films continue to attract sizeable audiences.

Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but while Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film - aggressive, raw, and utterly original. Based on unprecedented access to the genre's major players, New York Times critic Jason Zinoman's Shock Value delivers the first definitive account of horror's golden age.

Movies (And Other Things) is a book about, quite frankly, movies (and other things). One of the chapters, for example, answers which race Kevin Costner was able to white savior the best, because did you know that he white saviors Mexicans in McFarland, USA, and white saviors Native Americans in Dances with Wolves, and white saviors Black people in Black or White, and white saviors the Cleveland Browns in Draft Day? Another of the chapters creates a special version of the Academy Awards specifically for rom-coms, the most underrated movie genre of all.

Beethoven imbibed Enlightenment and revolutionary ideas in his hometown of Bonn, where they were fervently discussed in cafes and at the university. Moving to Vienna at the age of 21 to study with Haydn, he gained renown as a brilliant pianist and innovative composer. In that conservative city, capital of the Hapsburg empire, authorities were ever watchful to curtail and punish overt displays of radical political views. Nevertheless, Beethoven avidly followed the meteoric rise of Napoleon.