culture

Hardcover. NY, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 763 pages, b&w illustrations. From the author of the critically acclaimed Elvis Presley biography: Last Train to Memphis brings us the life of Sam Phillips, the visionary genius who singlehandily steered the revolutionary path of Sun Records. The music that he shaped in his tiny Memphis studio with artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Ike Turner, Howlin' Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash, introduced a sound that had never been heard before. He brought forth a singular mix of black and white voices passionately proclaiming the vitality of the American vernacular tradition while at the same time declaring, once and for all, a new, integrated musical day. With extensive interviews and firsthand personal observations extending over a 25-year period with Phillips, along with wide-ranging interviews with nearly all the legendary Sun Records artists, Guralnick gives us an ardent, unrestrained portrait of an American original as compelling in his own right as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, or Thomas Edison.

Hardcover. New York, Broadway Books, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 304 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Minor foxing to top edge of text block. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. A tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Harper, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 672 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Softcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, reprint, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pictorial wraps, 490 pages. By explaining how to sire multicolored horses, produce nuts without shells, and create an egg the size of a human head, Giambattista Della Porta's Natural Magic (1559) conveys a fascination with tricks and illusions that makes it a work difficult for historians of science to take seriously. Yet, according to William Eamon, it is in the "how-to" books written by medieval alchemists, magicians, and artisans that modern science has its roots. These compilations of recipes on everything from parlor tricks through medical remedies to wool-dyeing fascinated medieval intellectuals because they promised access to esoteric "secrets of nature." In closely examining this rich but little-known source of literature, Eamon reveals that printing technology and popular culture had as great, if not stronger, an impact on early modern science as did the traditional academic disciplines. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Los Angeles, CA, Taschen, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 336 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in publishers shrink-wrap. This book brings together Salgado's photos of Africa in three parts. The first concentrates on the southern part of the continent (Mozambique, Malawi, Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia), the second on the Great Lakes region (Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya), and the third on the Sub-Saharan region (Burkina Faso, Mali, Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Mauritania, Senegal, Ethiopia). Texts are provided by renowned Mozambique novelist Mia Couto, who describes how today's Africa reflects the effects of colonization as well as the consequences of economic, social, and environmental crises.

Hardcover. Los Angeles, CA, Taschen, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 336 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in publishers shrink-wrap. This book brings together Salgado's photos of Africa in three parts. The first concentrates on the southern part of the continent (Mozambique, Malawi, Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia), the second on the Great Lakes region (Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya), and the third on the Sub-Saharan region (Burkina Faso, Mali, Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Mauritania, Senegal, Ethiopia). Texts are provided by renowned Mozambique novelist Mia Couto, who describes how today's Africa reflects the effects of colonization as well as the consequences of economic, social, and environmental crises. NOTE: DUE TO SIZE & WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Mohr Siebeck, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 654 pages, b&w illustrations. Light shelf-wear to dust jacket, previous owner's stamp on front end paper. Faint foxing to top edge, otherwise a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Viking Press, 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 276 pages. Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Clean, tight copy.

Softcover. Port Moresby AU, University of Papua and New Guinea, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 675 pages. Papers delivered at a seminar sponsored jointly by the University of Papua and New Guinea, the Australian ... at Port Moresby from 30 May to 5 June 1968. Clean copy. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. NY, Pantheon, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 345 pages. As political change sweeps the streets and squares, the parliaments and presidential palaces of the Arab world, Shereen El Feki has been looking at an upheaval a little closer to home--in the sexual lives of men and women in Egypt and across the region. The result is an informative, insightful, and engaging account of a highly sensitive and still largely secret aspect of Arab society. Sex is entwined in religion, tradition, politics, economics, and culture, so it is the perfect lens through which to examine the complex social landscape of the Arab world. From pregnant virgins to desperate housewives, from fearless activists to religious firebrands, from sex work to same-sex relations, Sex and the Citadel takes a fresh look at the sexual history of the region and brings new voices to the debate over its future. Clean copy.

Softcover. Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Center of Chinese Studies, 1st Edition, 1979, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 125 pages. Soft cover. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. Wrapper has some tanning (shelfwear) and small spot of soil on front cover (see image), otherwise good with no tears. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. A study of the Chinese May Thirtieth movement.

Hardcover. NY, PowerHouse, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Women's liberation in Shanghai, China as captured through the lens of Bettina Rheims, with beautiful full-page photographs throughout. Textual insight (in English) by Serge Bramly. 11-1/4 x 13"; 252 pages. Rheims beautifully stages photographs of real women from all walks of life.

Schiffer Publishing, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 272 pages illustrated in color. Explore fashion history with legs at center stage--from the dawn of civilization through current-day trends. This book examines society's role in moving hemlines and in shaping "legcentric" traditions throughout history. What has changed or stayed the same in the course of fashion eras? How have legs appeared in dance, sport, performance, pageantry, and conventional or outre outfits? Find out how athletics, depictions in literature and art, and motifs in advertising and films reflect our changing times. Discover the styles, attitudes, customs, sex appeal, socially acceptable postures and walks, and more in this comprehensive view of leg fashions through the ages. Enjoy fashions from the waist down through 319 striking images explained in their historical context.

Hardcover. NY, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 240 pages. More than 500 illustrations with 67 in full color. Here are countless examples of fabled but long-unseen American Sherlockian art: story illustrations, comic strips and cartoons, motion picture advertisements, and business advertisements incorporating the Holmes image. Stories are included also - hilarious American burlesques of Arthur Conan Doyle's Great Detective; and there are critics' reviews of old and new Holmes stage productions and of the many Holmes films. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, George G. Harrap & Co. , 1st, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 271 pages. Hardcover. Previous owners name at top right corner of front endpaper. Illustrated with black & white photographs. Light wear to dust jacket - jacket now protected with clear plastic cover. Clean, tight copy.

Saint Paul MN, West Publishing Group, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth pictorial covers, faded spine. The life histories of 6 Korean shaman women who share in common the social ascription of outcast status. Previous owner's name on inside front cover, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Del Mar, CA, Tehabi Books, 1st Edition, 1995, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: Near Fine, 168 pages. Hardcover. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. Color illustrations throughout. Dust Jacked unclipped, excellent. Gray cloth bound cover boards, design blind-stamped on front cover board, in beautiful condition. Pages clean and unmarked, Binding tight. Spine straight. Looks nearly new. A collection of action-packed stories from the finest ski writers and spectacular photography from the foremost ski photographers.

Hardcover. NY, Abrams, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 240 pages. Aarons, erstwhile photographer to the rich and famous, has combed his archives to compile a collection of slick, upscale snapshots that vividly capture the lives of the "polo set." After the violence he witnessed as a combat photographer in WWII, Aarons decided that the only beaches he wanted to invade in the future were "decorated with beautiful girls tanning in a tranquil sun"-which are amply presented here. Aarons imparts a nearly tactile quality to these razor-sharp images, and every photograph, from the 1950s through the 1980s, is richly evocative of its era. One 1955 photo captures longtime fashion icon C.Z. Guest poolside in typically modest mid-century swimming attire with her son and dogs. A 1964 spread for Town & Country pictures the deeply tanned "young matrons of Palm Beach" in day-glow floral Lilly Pulitzer dresses. In a 1968 picture, fellow photographer Lord Lichfield is shown on the Italian Riviera wearing groovy yellow pants and flanked by Pucci-clad Italian princesses. Aaron's caption notes that "a photographer's life without a wife" seems to agree with the young cousin to Queen Elizabeth. While much of Aarons' work is focused on "horsey" types, he also turns his lens on creative folks. A dashing Gore Vidal is pictured at his Italian villa, the late Gianni Versace is shown at work in his home on Lake Como and Wanda Horowitz, daughter of Arturo Toscanini, is photographed at her father's podium at La Scala opera house in Milan. Aarons' gossipy captions, which accompany each photograph, help make this striking volume a voyeur's dream. 250 color photographs

Softcover. North Adams, MA, Mass Moca, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 271 pages. Softcover with paper wrappers. Clean, tight copy. Color plates in rear.

Hardcover. Norman, OK, University of Oklahoma Press, 1st Edition, 1939, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 274 pages. Hardcover. Tan cloth cover boards, brown title on spine. Some tanning from age to covers, pages and edges. Top edge dyed red. Clear plastic mylar included. Good clean, tight copy. Social statement and opinion about those who live happily below the poverty line in the southern United States.

Hardcover. NY, Rizzoli, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Hardcover, 191 pages. Hardcover. Dust jacket unclipped. Color illustrations throughout. Ginn, a New Zealander who spent three years traveling through the regions covered here, depicts in photographs and explains in brief captions dance traditions in her own country, Australia, the Solomon Islands, India, Burma, Thailand, Nepal and Indonesia. Dust jacket has a touch of moisture damage to back. Otherwise clean inside and out. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. NY, Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co., 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 292 pages. Tough and witty, SportsWorld is a well-known commentator's overview of the most significant form of mass culture in America n sports. It's a sweaty Oz that has grown in a century from a crucible for character to a complex of capitalism, a place where young people can find both self-fulfillment and cruel exploitation, where families can huddle in a sanctuary of entertainment and be force fed values and where cities and countries can be pillaged by greedy team owners and their paid-for politicians. But this book is not just a screed, it's a guided visit with such heroes of sports as Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Joe Namath, who the author knew well, and with some he met in passing, like Richard Nixon, who seemed never to have gotten over missing the cut in college varsity football, a major mark of manhood. We see how SportsWorld sensibilities help elect our politicians, judge our children, fight our wars, and oppress our minorities. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 321 pages, illustrated throughout in color and b&w. Light edgewear and rubbing to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy. In The Springboard in the Pond, Thomas van Leeuwen looks at a familiar hole--the domestic swimming pool--and discovers an icon indispensable to the reading of twentieth-century modernism. The books many illustrations--drawings, plans, and photographs--come from an unusual variety of sources, creating what is surely the most provocative visual archive of the swimming pool ever assembled.

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 346 pages. In Status and Culture, W. David Marx weaves together the wisdom from history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, cultural theory, literary theory, art history, media studies, and neuroscience to demonstrate exactly how individual status seeking creates our cultural ecosystem. Marx examines three fundamental questions: Why do individuals cluster around arbitrary behaviors and take deep meaning from them? How do distinct styles, conventions, and sensibilities emerge? Why do we change behaviors over time and why do some behaviors stick around? The answers then provide new perspectives for understanding the seeming "weightlessness" of internet culture. Clean copy.