Popular History

Beer is the world’s most popular alcoholic drink, but if you’ve only sampled the most popular brands, you are missing out some of the best tasting brews around. This audiobook guides you to the world’s best craft beers, how they are made, and what foods to pair them with. Each craft beer has a story, and much like fine wine, every batch has its own unique flavor and characteristics.

Whether you hate him or just feel disgusted with him, the fact is that Ted Bundy remains one of the most discussed serial killers even 27 years after his execution. Even now, anything even remotely connected to Bundy makes headlines. Bundy may have been charged for the murders of 36 women, but most people know that the count of his victims is actually higher than 100. He may have been executed in 1989 in an electric chair, but his charm, intelligence, and communication skills made him a celebrity.

Dive into "Weird, Whacky, and Sometimes Cool 2: A Book of Interesting Things, One Surprise at a Time" and explore the most astonishing corners of our world. From the culinary quirks of melon-flavored curry and banana beer to the awe-inspiring natural spectacles of Bolivia's mirror-like salt flats and the mysterious Gates of Hell in Turkmenistan, this book is a treasure trove of the globe's most extraordinary phenomena. Each chapter is a journey into the vivid and the vibrant, bringing to life cultural practices, natural wonders, and human innovations that are seldom seen.

This Very Short Introduction recounts the history of American culture and its creation by diverse social and ethnic groups. In doing so, it emphasizes the historic role of culture in relation to broader social, political, and economic developments. Across the lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as language, region, and religion, diverse Americans have forged a national culture with a global reach, inventing stories that have shaped a national identity and an American way of life.

What makes Buffy the Vampire Slayer a "brave dame" but Ally McBeal a "wimpette"? In this witty, incisive look at the role of women on screen and page, Susan Isaacs argues that assertive, ethical women characters are losing ground to wounded, shallow sisters who are driven by what she calls, "the articles of wimpette philosophy."

The nineteenth century saw the American circus move from a reviled and rejected form of entertainment to the “Greatest Show on Earth.” Circus Life by Micah D. Childress looks at this transition from the perspective of the people who owned and worked in circuses and how they responded to the new incentives that rapid industrialization made possible.

O Brasil está entre os países que mais lincham no mundo. Nos últimos 60 anos, mais de um milhão de brasileiros participou de ações de justiçamento de rua. Neste audiolivro oportuno e inquietante, o sociólogo José de Souza Martins busca, além dos motivos próximos, as raízes profundas dessa antiga prática, verdadeiro ritual de loucura coletiva.

America is a country built by thinkers on a foundation of ideas. Alongside classic works of philosophy and ethics, however, our presidents have been influenced by the books, movies, TV shows, viral videos, and social media sensations of their day. In What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culturen in the White House presidential scholar and former White House aide Tevi Troy combines research with witty observation to tell the story of how our presidents have been shaped by popular culture.

This is the first study to explore fully the myth of America as reflected in the nation's popular music. Beginning with the songs of the Pilgrims and continuing through more than two centuries of history and music, Born in the U.S.A. shows the emerging American myth and gives a close reading of the compositions of songwriters as diverse as William Billings, Henry Clay Work, Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen.

The professional judgment of gatekeepers defined the American news agenda for decades. Making the News Popular examines how subsequent events brought on a post-professional period that opened the door for imagining that consumer preferences should drive news production - and unleashed both crisis and opportunity on journalistic institutions.

De esporte de elite a entretenimento das massas; do amadorismo ao profissionalismo; dos salários modestos à globalização-exportação; o uso político do esporte e o uso da política pelo esporte. Quando se estuda futebol no Brasil, não se fala "só" de um jogo, mas da própria história do país, emaranhada com a evolução nas quatro linhas do campo. O jornalista e historiador Marcos Guterman mostra a trajetória do futebol no país desde sua chegada da Inglaterra, a formação dos primeiros clubes, os craques, os grandes fracassos, as peculiaridades.

Наша история - и древнейшая, и средневековая, и современная - полна неразрешимых до сих пор загадок и тайн. Среди них исчезновение цивилизаций, культур, городов и земель, существовавших когда-то и пропавших без следа.

“Paul is dead.” It was the late 1960's, the Beatles hadn’t toured since 1966, and some truly bizarre indications began appearing, pointing to the unthinkable: Paul McCartney had been killed in a car accident and replaced by a look-alike. The Walrus Was Paul unearths every single clue from one of rock ’n’ roll’s most enduring puzzles and takes you on a magical mystery tour of baffling, yet fascinating, hints for solving this mystery.

The ticking bomb scenario is a thought experiment designed to demonstrate that torture can be justified in emergency conditions. If there was a bomb hidden somewhere in a major city, would it be justified to torture a captured informant in order to obtain the critical information that could prevent a devastating terrorist attack? In How to Justify Torture, cultural critic Alex Adams examines this thought experiment in depth by exploring the wide range of cultural productions. By critiquing the argument step-by-step, this audiobook reminds us why torture can never be justified.

In a long line of beloved books, Loud Pictures stands as Marc Spitz’s final project. This big, broad, noisy, and expansive exploration of art marries the two things Marc loved most—movies and rock and roll. In many ways, films can become imprinted on our brains because of their soundtracks.

The Sugababes have made a huge impact in the music industry. Their influence is still felt and is stronger than ever now the original line-up reunited over ten years ago. Their hits are still played in many radio stations today.

The hundreds of end-of-time prophecies splashed across the consciousness from the time of clay tablets to our Internet have had something besides hysteria in common: every one of them has been wrong. Here is a survey of three millennia of apocalyptic prophecies, tracing one of the most remarkable threads of our cultural history: our long and unproductive fascination with apocalyptic myths and miracles that can solve our problems without requiring committed action in our own lives.

Why is the athlete so important to us? Few public figures can dominate the public imagination with such power and authority. Drawing from art, literature, politics, and history, Something like the Gods explores the powerful grip the athlete has always held on the Western imagination. Amidon examines the archetype of the competitor as it evolved from antiquity to the present day, from athlete-warriors such as Achilles and Ulysses to global media icons like Ali, Jordan, and Tiger Woods.

More than 60,000 books have been published on the Civil War. Most Americans, though, get their ideas about the war why it was fought, what was won, what was lost not from books but from movies, television, and other popular media. In an engaging and accessible survey, Gallagher guides listeners through the stories told in recent film and art, showing how they have both reflected and influenced the political, social, and racial currents of their times.

Abridged edition: Using portraits of America’s flawed policy makers and accounts of the forces that drove them, The Best and the Brightest reckons magnificently with the most important abiding question of our country’s recent history: Why did America become mired in Vietnam, and why did we lose?