American Mavericks PDF Download

Author: Susan Key
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520233058
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Inspired by the San Francisco Symphony's highly successful American music festival last June, this book and its accompanying CD provide an entertaining survey of some of America's best-known composers--all of them controversial in their day.

Author: Michael Broyles
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300127898
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
From colonial times to the present, American composers have lived on the fringes of society and defined themselves in large part as outsiders. In this stimulating book Michael Broyles considers the tradition of maverick composers and explores what these mavericks reveal about American attitudes toward the arts and about American society itself. Broyles starts by examining the careers of three notably unconventional composers: William Billings in the eighteenth century, Anthony Philip Heinrich in the nineteenth, and Charles Ives in the twentieth. All three had unusual lives, wrote music that many considered incomprehensible, and are now recognized as key figures in the development of American music. Broyles goes on to investigate the proliferation of eccentric individualism in all types of American music—classical, popular, and jazz—and how it has come to dominate the image of diverse creative artists from John Cage to Frank Zappa. The history of the maverick tradition, Broyles shows, has much to tell us about the role of music in American culture and the tension between individualism and community in the American consciousness.

Author: Greg Merritt
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 9781560252320
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Filmmaking documents this rich history, showing what it meant to be "independent" in the 1930s and what it means today. Author Greg Merritt distinguishes between indie and semi-indie productions, explores the genres represented under the independent umbrella, and addresses the question of what makes a movie independent -- its "spirit" or the budget backing the production. From one-reel flicks at the turn of the century to the blockbusters of the ‘90s, Celluloid Mavericks takes readers on a fascinating tour of the industry.

Author: Maya Rao
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610396472
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
A surreal, lyrical work of narrative nonfiction that portrays how the largest domestic oil discovery in half a century transformed a forgotten corner of the American West into a crucible of breakneck capitalism. As North Dakota became the nation's second-largest oil producer, Maya Rao set out in steel-toe boots to join a wave of drifters, dreamers, entrepreneurs, and criminals. With an eye for the dark, absurd, and humorous, Rao fearlessly immersed herself in their world to chronicle this modern-day gold rush, from its heady beginnings to OPEC's price war against the US oil industry. She rode shotgun with a surfer-turned-truck driver braving toxic fumes and dangerous roads, dined with businessmen disgraced during the financial crisis, and reported on everyone in between -- including an ex-con YouTube celebrity, a trophy wife mired in scandal, and a hard-drinking British Ponzi schemer--in a social scene so rife with intrigue that one investor called the oilfield Peyton Place on steroids. As the boom receded, a culture of greed and recklessness left troubling consequences for investors and longtime residents. Empty trailers and idle oil equipment littered the fields like abandoned farmsteads, leaving the pioneers who built this unlikely civilization to reckon with their legacy. Part Barbara Ehrenreich, part Upton Sinclair, Great American Outpost is a sobering exploration of twenty-first-century America that reads like a frontier novel.

Author: Martin J. Smith
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060535326
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Pop culture meets pop reference in this irreverent tour of twenty unlikely events, innovations, and individuals that forever changed how we live today -- the food we eat, the places we live, the love we make, the fads we follow, the clothes we wear, the products we buy, and much more. Veteran journalists Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger make the offbeat their beat, revealing the odd, surprising, and amusing origins of inexplicable cultural phenomena. From slam dunks to rock 'n' roll punks, permanent press to pantyhose, black velvet painting to point-click culture, high-tech diapers to low-brow entertainment -- they cover sports, business, music, media, film, fashion, and science, and explain a lot about why life today is so weird: If homeowners hate yardwork, why do most suburban homes have lawns? In the best-fed country on earth, how did thin become "in"? When did the "convenience" of convenience food become more important than the food? Was the sexual revolution really sparked by the disastrous honeymoon of a science geek? Why are today's multimillion-dollar design and marketing plans for cars based on the biggest failure in automotive history? How did the invention of air conditioning radically rebalance political power and affect the paths of presidents? The untold, unexpected, sometimes unholy stories are here, providing instant inside knowledge and richly entertaining insights into how and why we live as we do.

Author: Barry Rosenberg
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062037579
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
It was the pilots of the U.S. Air Mail service who made it possible for flight to evolve from an impractical and deadly fad to today's worldwide network of airlines. Nicknamed "The Suicide Club," this small but daring cadre of pilots took a fleet of flimsy World War I "Jenny" Biplanes and blazed a trail of sky routes across the country. In the midst of the Jazz Age, they were dashing, group–proud, brazen, and resentful of authority. They were also loyal, determined to prove the skeptics wrong. MAVERICKS OF THE SKY, by Barry Rosenburg and Catherine Macaulay, is a narrative non–fiction account of the crucial, first three years of the air mail service – beginning with the inaugural New York–to–Washington D.C. flight in 1918, through 1921 when aviator Jack Knight was the first to fly across the country at night and furthermore, through a blizzard. In those early years, one out of every four men lost their lives. With the constant threat of weather and mechanical failure and with little instrumentation available, aviators relied on their wits and instincts to keep them out of trouble. MAVERICKS OF THE SKY brings these sagas to life, and tells the story of the extraordinary lives and rivalries of those who single–handedly pulled off the great experiment.

Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006207962X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
“Simon Winchester never disappoints, and The Men Who United the States is a lively and surprising account of how this sprawling piece of geography became a nation. This is America from the ground up. Inspiring and engaging.” —Tom Brokaw Simon Winchester, acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and bond the citizenry and geography of the U.S.A. from its beginnings. How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators, such as Lewis and Clark and the leaders of the Great Surveys; the builders of the first transcontinental telegraph and the powerful civil engineer behind the Interstate Highway System. He treks vast swaths of territory, from Pittsburgh to Portland, Rochester to San Francisco, Seattle to Anchorage, introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States. Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree. Featuring 32 illustrations throughout the text, The Men Who United the States is a fresh look at the way in which the most powerful nation on earth came together.

Author: Hugh Desaix Riordan
Publisher: Keats Publishing
ISBN: 9780942333077
Category : Medicine
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book could just as accurately have been titled "One person can make a difference" or "Burn him at the stake and use damp straw." Often reviled by their contemporaries but revered by subsequent generations, these medical mavericks blazed the trail of scientific progress. These tales of discovery, personal hardship, court intrigues and hardball professional rivalry make for fascinating reading. This is the perfect book for medical professionals, history buffs, and anyone who just wants to be entertained with incredible anecdotes about pioneers in the fields of medicine. This book will raise the eyebrows of most, make others chuckle and bring a sense of relief to contemporary mavericks, who can take comfort in the thought that at least they aren't being burned at the stake. Volume two will continue what volume one started. It will raise the eyebrows of most, make others chuckle, and bring a sense of relief to contemporary mavericks, who can take comfort in the thought that even the concept that physicians need to wash their hands was ridiculed. Having clinical medicine for more than 30 years, served as consultant to the Executive Vice-President of the American Medical Association for two years, Dr. Riordan brings a unique perspective to the world of medicine. A graduate of University of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin Medical School, Dr. Riordan believes that the nationwide lack of history of medicine courses like the ones he enjoyed at Wisconsin leaves a significant void in medical education.

Author: Stephanie Wellen Levine
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814751970
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
A look at young Jewish women who are typecast as pious and reserved but have as much imagination and similar desires as other young women.

Author: Ricardo Semler
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0712678867
Category : Brasilien
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Semco is one of Latin America's fastest-growing companies, acknowledged to be the best in Brazil to work for, and with a waiting list of thousands of applicants waiting to join it. Here, the author shares his secrets, and tells how he tore up the rule books.