Readers of detective stories are turning more toward historical crime fiction to learn both what everyday life was like in past societies and how society coped with those who broke the laws and restrictions of the times. The crime fiction treated here ranges from ancient Egypt through classical Greece and Rome; from medieval and renaissance China and Europe through nineteenth-century England and America.
Topics include: Ellis Peter s "Brother Cadfael"; Umberto Eco s "Name of the Rose"; Susanna Gregory s "Doctor Matthew Bartholomew"; Peter Heck s Mark Twain as detective; Anne Perry and her...

This work collects 1600 entries that define popular culture in the USA. Alphabetical entries vary from the inclusive and general (golf, domestic decorations, horror films) to specific individuals, items and events.

The essays in this collection present communities beset by unexpected social and physical events. Some outline immediate responses that soon pass and some that will not go away. Who would have foreseen that Elvis would be a phenomenon apparently as lasting as the faces on Mount Rushmore? Cultural history will not allow us to forget the H. G. Wells account of the Martian attack, nor can we ever forget the continued terror of the Chernobyl explosion. "Ordinary Reactions to Extraordinary Events "catalogues on the Geiger counter of human emotions societal reactions to events both earthshaking and...

The essays in this collection present communities beset by unexpected social and physical events. Some outline immediate responses that soon pass and some that will not go away. Who would have foreseen that Elvis would be a phenomenon apparently as lasting as the faces on Mount Rushmore? Cultural history will not allow us to forget the H. G. Wells account of the Martian attack, nor can we ever forget the continued terror of the Chernobyl explosion. Ordinary Reactions to Extraordinary Events catalogues on the Geiger counter of human emotions societal reactions to events both earthshaking and...

From Hank Williams to hip hop, Aunt Jemima to the Energizer Bunny, scrap-booking to NASCAR racing, Profiles of Popular Culture cuts a generous swath across what is perhaps the fastest growing discipline of the past several decades. Edited by a pioneer in the field, this volume invites readers to reflect on a diverse sampling of modern myths, icons, archetypes, rituals, and pastimes. Adopting an inclusive approach, editor Ray B. Browne has mined both scholarly and mainstream media to bring together penetrating essays on fads and fashions, sports fandom, the shaping of body image,...

From Hank Williams to hip hop, Aunt Jemima to the Energizer Bunny, scrap-booking to NASCAR racing, "Profiles of Popular Culture" cuts a generous swath across what is perhaps the fastest growing discipline of the past several decades. Edited by a pioneer in the field, this volume invites readers to reflect on a diverse sampling of modern myths, icons, archetypes, rituals, and pastimes. Adopting an inclusive approach, editor Ray B. Browne has mined both scholarly and mainstream media to bring together penetrating essays on fads and fashions, sports fandom, the shaping of body image, aesthetic...

Abraham Lincoln, both in his time and in ours, has always stood much taller than life. Well over a century after his assassination, Americans remain fascinated with the Civil War: what were the real issues over which it was fought, who were the actual people involved, and what the everyday life of those people was like. Lincoln, as the epitome of both the good and the bad of that war, continues to loom as the most important single object of our interest.
The people's lore about Lincoln has through the years continued to grow and to assume ever greater importance both for what it tells...

Originally published and copyrighted in 1989 by Bowling Green State University Popular Press under the name Against Academia: The History of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association and the Popular Culture Movement 1967-1988

The essays in this book trace many of the multitudinous forces at work on the Constitution and in the popular culture and show how the forces control and benefit each other. The subject is of profound importance and, beginning with these essays, needs to be studied at great length for the benefit of us all.