culture

Hardcover. Reading, Garnet, 1st UK, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 118 pages. Illustrated with black & white photographs by Freya Stark. 1/2" deep closed tear at top right corner of first 4 pages - appears to be publishers error. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Library Press, 2nd pr., 1971, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 335 pages. Described by Melvin Lasky as "one of the great journalists of our time," Luigi Barzini was also one of the great cultural historians of modern Italy. From Caesar to the Mafia brings together his finest essays, roughly half of them never before published in the English language. Whether discussing the deep Italian roots of Julius Caesar, Casanova's contribution to the art of living big, or Camillo Cavour's contribution to a democratic as well as integrated nation, Barzini makes Italian culture come alive. Whether he is dealing with heroes or villains, he never loses sight of how Italy became a distinct nation. From Caesar to the Mafia is not only about people, but also focuses on places and problems. When Barzini discusses the Sicilians, the Isle of Capri, or his birthplace of Milan, he has the distinct capacity to capture what is universal as well as what is intimate in each place. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Dewi Lewis Publishing, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 96 pages, color illustrations. In publisher's shrinkwrap. No dust jacket issued. Leading photographer Martin Parr has put together another wonderful book from his personal collection. This time he shows us the American Christmas Card. These are a fascinating eye opener into American culture, as proud families everywhere (pets included) pose before the camera to send their Christmas Greetings across the nation.Magnum photographer Martin Parr's work features in newspapers and magazines worldwide and has been exhibited in every continent. A dedicated collector of cards, his books Boring Postcards and Boring Postcards USA have been major publishing successes.

Hardcover. London, Dewi Lewis Publishing, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 96 pages, color illustrations. In publisher's shrinkwrap. No dust jacket issued. Leading photographer Martin Parr has put together another wonderful book from his personal collection. This time he shows us the American Christmas Card. These are a fascinating eye opener into American culture, as proud families everywhere (pets included) pose before the camera to send their Christmas Greetings across the nation.Magnum photographer Martin Parr's work features in newspapers and magazines worldwide and has been exhibited in every continent. A dedicated collector of cards, his books Boring Postcards and Boring Postcards USA have been major publishing successes.

Hardcover. Kent OH, Kent State University Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 387 pages, b&w illustrations. Clean, unmarked in a bright dust jacket. The Lincoln images, originally appearing in such publications as Budget of Fun, Comic Monthly, New York Illustrated News, Phunny Phellow, Southern Punch, and Yankee Notions, significantly expand our understanding of the evolution of public opinion toward Lincoln, the complex dynamics of Civil War, popular art and culture, the media, political caricature, and presidential politics. Lincoln, appealed to illustrators because of his distinctive physical features. (One could scarcely conceive of a similar book on James Buchanan, his immediate predecessor.) Despite ever-improving techniques, Lincoln pictorial prominence competed favorably with any succeeding president in the nineteenth century.

Hardcover. Kent OH, Kent State University Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, The Lincoln images, originally appearing in such publications as Budget of Fun, Comic Monthly, New York Illustrated News, Phunny Phellow, Southern Punch, and Yankee Notions, significantly expand our understanding of the evolution of public opinion toward Lincoln, the complex dynamics of Civil War, popular art and culture, the media, political caricature, and presidential politics. Lincoln, appealed to illustrators because of his distinctive physical features. (One could scarcely conceive of a similar book on James Buchanan, his immediate predecessor.) Despite ever-improving techniques, Lincoln pictorial prominence competed favorably with any succeeding president in the nineteenth century. Historical illustrations throughout. 387 pages Including index.

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday Crime Club , 1st, 1933, Hardcover, black cloth stamped in red. 319 pages. Red dyed top edge. Light toning throughout, previous owner's signature front fly leaf. Otherwise clean. A strange epidemic is sweeping the Riviera. In desperation the French authorities call upon Dr Petrie to find an answer. During this crisis, a mysterious siren on the beach captivates Alan Sterling. She tells him her name only ? Fleurette ? and flees. When Petrie's lab cultures show up sleeping sickness and plague, they call in Sir Denis Nayland Smith. It is not long before their investigations lead them to Fleurette ? and to Dr Fu Manchu.

Hardcover. NY, Da Capo Press, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Fug You is Ed Sanders's unapologetic and often hilarious account of eight key years of "total assault on the culture," to quote his novelist friend William S. Burroughs. Fug You traces the flowering years of New York's downtown bohemia in the sixties, starting with the marketing problems presented by publishing Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts, as it faced the aboveground's scrutiny, and leading to Sanders's arrest after a raid on his Peace Eye Bookstore. The memoir also traces the career of the Fugs -- formed in 1964 by Sanders and his neighbor, the legendary Tuli Kupferberg (called "the world's oldest living hippie" by Allen Ginsberg) -- as Sanders strives to find a home for this famous postmodern, innovative anarcho-folk-rock band in the world of record labels.

Softcover. New York, Forge, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 237 pages. Softcover. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor edgewear. Nearly 150 Gahan Wilson cartoons appear for the very first time anywhere in Gahan Wilson's Even Weirder. An additional 90 cartoons make their debut in book form, after initial publication in The New Yorker, Playboy and other magazines.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2010, Haerdcover in a bright dust jacket. 354 pages, b&w illustrations. Galileo (1564-1642) is one of the most important and controversial figures in the history of science. Tackling Galileo as astronomer, engineer and author, the author places him at the centre of Renaissance culture. He traces Galileo through his early rebellious years onwards: his move to Florence seeking money, status, and greater freedom to attack intellectual orthodoxies; his trial for heresy and narrow escape from torture; and his house arrest and physical (though not intellectual) decline. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Kodansha International, Reprint, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 228 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. Black & white and color photographs throughout. A tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, powerHouse Books, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 119 pages. SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY STANLEY BURNS on the title page. Japanese geisha and courtesans intrigue and fascinate Westerners. During the mid-nineteenth century, Japan opened its doors to the world and became an essential destination for travelers. Tourists desired images of landscapes and traditional Japanese culture, which Japanese photographers provided. They created souvenir albums consisting of hand-colored photographs individually chosen by the tourist. Many are so beautifully painted that they challenge modern sensibilities familiar with color photography. The photographic conventions were inspired by the aesthetics of the noted colored woodblock print medium of ukiyo-e and the privately published surimono. These works depicted the "floating world"--courtesans, geisha, and entertainments--which also were intriguing subject matter for tourists. The beautiful, large photos in this volume give a special insight into the old world of geisha. Clean copy.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 210 pages. In this rich comparative ethnography, Lee describes how two radically different factory cultures have emerged from a period of profound economic change. In Hong Kong, "matron workers" remain in factories for decades. In Guangdong, a seemingly endless number of young "maiden workers" travel to the south from northern provinces, following the promise of higher wages. Whereas the women in Hong Kong participate in a management system characterized by "familial hegemony," the young women in Guangdong find an internal system of power based on regional politics and kin connections, or "localistic despotism." Having worked side-by-side with these women on the floors of both factories, Lee concludes that it is primarily the differences in the gender politics of the two labor markets that determine the culture of each factory. Posing an ambitious challenge to sociological theories that reduce labor politics to pure economics or state power structures, Lee argues that gender plays a crucial role in the cultures and management strategies of factories that rely heavily on women workers. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 206 pages. Famously unabashed, W. Eugene Smith was photography's most celebrated humanist. As a photo essayist at Life magazine in the 1940s and '50s, he established himself as an intimate chronicler of human culture. His photographs of war and disaster, villages and metropolises, doctors and midwives, revolutionized the role of images in journalism, transforming photography for decades to come. When Smith died in 1978, he left behind eighteen dollars in the bank and forty-four thousand pounds of archives. He was only fifty-nine, but he was flat worn-out. His death certificate read "stroke," but, as was said of the immortal jazzman Charlie Parker, Smith died of "everything," from drug and alcohol benders to weeklong work sessions with no sleep. Lured by the intoxicating trail of people that emerged from Smith's stupefying archive, Sam Stephenson began a quest to trace his footsteps. In Gene Smith's Sink, Stephenson merges traditional biography with rhythmic digressions to revive Smith's life and legacy. Traveling across twenty-nine states, Japan, and the Pacific, Stephenson profiles a lively cast of characters, including the playwright Tennessee Williams, to whom Smith likened himself; the avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage, with whom he once shared a Swiss chalet; the artist Mary Frank, who was married to his friend Robert Frank; the jazz pianists Thelonious Monk and Sonny Clark, whose music was taped by Smith in his loft; and a series of obscure caregivers who helped keep Smith on his feet. The distillation of twenty years of research, Gene Smith's Sink is an unprecedented look into the photographer's potent legacy and the subjects around him. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. NY, NYU Press, 1st pbk., 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. 474 pages. In Generations of Youth, Joe Austin and Michael Willard have brought together leading cultural critics from history, sociology, and cultural studies to explore the cultural expressions of twentieth-century youth. The contributors to the volume explore diverse popular culture practices such as Chicano rock-and-roll dancing; the Boy Scouts and heroism; 'zines and community; Native American boxing; African American hip-hop; fan clubs and femininity; Malcolm X's zoot suit; Filipino McIntosh suits; lesbian, bisexual, and gay Internet culture; Chicano lowriding; skateboarding and the production of urban space; graffiti and spatial mobility; Native American pow wows; and post-punk, Generation X, and downward mobility. Generations of Youth considers the ways in which young people's autonomy and "youth" itself is produced in negotiation with adult authority and institutions of socialization.

Softcover. Boston, The Solio Foundation, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 107 pages. Softcover with minor wear to edges. Full color and black & white illustrations throughout. Clean unmarked text.

Softcover. New York, Harper Design, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 255 pages. Softcover. Extensive b&w photographs and illustrations throughout. Illustrated frontispiece. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers.

Hardcover. NY, Teachers College Press, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, unclipped dust jacket, 140 pages. A collection of essays by the German sociologist and philosopher concerning man's relationship to culture. Clean copy, minor wear to dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Assouline Publishing , 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 200 pages. In 2008, the Museum of Modern Art acquired a wide range of George Lois's groundbreaking Esquire magazine covers and put them on display for a full year. The Esquire Covers at MoMA collects the entirety of that exhibit, many more covers, and unseen images from Lois's private collection, including personal photographs of the designer at work and outtakes of a shoot with Andy Warhol. George Lois, who led advertising's creative revolution in the 1960s, was hand-picked by the legendary editor Harold Hayes to convey visually that Esquire--a leading proponent of another creative revolution of the time, New Journalism--was on the cutting edge of profound changes in American culture. With images of JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr. watching over Arlington National Cemetery; of Richard Nixon under the makeup-artist's powder-puff; and of Muhammad Ali as the martyred Saint Sebastian, he did just that.

Hardcover. New York , Assouline Publishing, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 200 pages, color illustrations. At the forefront of American advertising's creative revolution in the 1960s, George Lois was hand-picked by magazine editor Harold Hayes to visually convey that Esquire--a proponent of that era's New Journalism--was on the cutting edge of American culture. In 2008, New York City's Museum of Modern Art acquired a wide range of George Lois's groundbreaking, often controversial Esquire covers for its permanent collection. This fascinating catalogue presents the original exhibit, with additional covers and images from Lois's private collection, including photos of the designer at work and out-takes of the shoot that resulted in Andy Warhol "drowning" in one of his own tomato soup cans. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap.

Hardcover. NY, Arcade Publishing, 1st us, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 440 pages, color and b&w illustrations. This biography examines Braque's creativity, his personal and professional relationships (with Beckett, Cezanne, Giacometti, Matisse, Miro, Picasso etc) and enriches our understanding of France's early 20th century art culture.

Softcover. Oakland CA, PM Press;, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 336 pages. The first comprehensive account of how the rise of postwar youth culture was depicted in mass-market pulp fiction. As the young created new styles in music, fashion, and culture, pulp fiction shadowed their every move, hyping and exploiting their behavior, dress, and language for mass consumption and cheap thrills. With their lurid covers and wild, action-packed plots, these books reveal as much about society's deepest desires and fears as they do about the subcultures themselves. Featuring approximately 400 full-color covers, many of them never before reprinted, along with 70 in-depth author interviews, illustrated biographies, and previously unpublished articles, the book goes behind the scenes to look at the authors and publishers, how they worked, where they drew their inspiration and--often overlooked--the actual words they wrote. It is a must read for anyone interested in pulp fiction, lost literary history, retro and subcultural style, and the history of postwar youth culture.

Hardcover. Caldwell ID, Caxton Press, reprint, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 466 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. This book considers the gold rushes, life in the camps, crime and justice, and the special situations and unique events that came out of this period. Heavily illustrated with black and white photographs. Endnotes, illustrations, indexed.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brick red cloth with a color photo illustrations on the front board with gilded and black letters to the front boards and spine, 168 pages. A fresh, comprehensive, and critical look at the California gold rush through the lens of the daguerreotype camera.The California gold rush was the first major event in American history to be documented in depth by photography. This fascinating volume offers a fresh, comprehensive, and critical look at the people, places, and culture of that historical episode as seen through daguerreotypes and ambrotypes of the era. After gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1848, thousands made the journey to California, including daguerreotypists who established studios in cities and towns and ventured into the gold fields in specially outfitted photographic wagons. Their images, including portraits, views of cities and gold towns, and miners at work in the field, provide an extraordinary glimpse into the evolution of mining culture and technology, the variety of nationalities and races involved in the mining industry, and the growth of cities such as San Francisco and Sacramento. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap.