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Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic--acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of the music, past and present.Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history--Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, cool jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie's advocacy of modern jazz in the 1940s, Miles Davis's 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality, Pat Metheny's visionary extension of jazz-rock fusion, the contemporary sounds of Wynton Marsalis, and the post-modernists of the current day. Gioia provides the reader with lively portraits of these and many other great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. He also evokes the many worlds of jazz, taking the reader to the swamp lands of the Mississippi Delta, the bawdy houses of New Orleans, the rent parties of Harlem, the speakeasies of Chicago during the Jazz Age, the after hours spots of corrupt Kansas city, the Cotton Club, the Savoy, and the other locales where the history of jazz was made. And as he traces the spread of this protean form, Gioia provides much insight into the social context in which the music was born.

THIS BOOK ANSWERS THE MOST OBVIOUS, THE MOST IMPORTANT, YET THE MOST DIFFICULT QUESTION ABOUT HUMAN HISTORY: WHY HISTORY UNFOLDED SO DIFFERENTLY ON DIFFERENT CONTINENTS. GEOGRAPHY AND BIOGRAPHY, NOT RACE, MOULDED THE CONTRASTING FATES OF EUROPEANS, ASIANS, NATIVE AMERICANS, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICANS, AND ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS. AN AMBITIOUS SYNTHESIS OF HISTORY, BIOLOGY, ECOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS, GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND HUMANE WORKS OF POPULAR SCIENCE.

This groundbreaking book proposes that the rise of alphabetic literacy reconfigured the human brain and brought about profound changes in history, religion, and gender relations. Making remarkable connections across brain function, myth, and anthropology, Dr. Shlain shows why pre-literate cultures were principally informed by holistic, right-brain modes that venerated the Goddess, images, and feminine values. Writing drove cultures toward linear left-brain thinking and this shift upset the balance between men and women, initiating the decline of the feminine and ushering in patriarchal rule. Examining the cultures of the Israelites, Greeks, Christians, and Muslims, Shlain reinterprets ancient myths and parables in light of his theory. Provocative and inspiring, this book is a paradigm-shattering work that will transform your view of history and the mind.

From its humble beginnings as a novelty in a handful of cities, cinema has risen to become a billion-dollar industry and the most spectacular and original contemporary art form. In The Oxford History of World Cinema, an international team of film historians traces the history of this enduringly popular entertainment medium. Covering all aspects of its development, stars, studios, and cultural impact, the book celebrates and chronicles over one hundred years of diverse achievement from westerns to the New Wave, from animation to the avant-garde, and from Hollywood to Hong Kong.The Oxford History of World Cinema tells the story of the major inventions and developments in the cinema business, its institutions, genres, and personnel, and they outline the evolution of national cinemas round the world--the varied and distinctive film traditions that have developed alongside Hollywood. A unique aspect of the book are the special inset features on the film-makers and personalities--Garbo and Godard, Keaton and Kurosawa, Bugs Bunny and Bergman--who have had an enduring impact in popular memory and cinematic lore. With over 280 illustrations, a full bibliography, and an extensive index, this is the buff's ultimate guide to cinema worldwide.

This third volume of the illustrated adaptation of the internationally bestselling phenomenon, Sapiens: A Graphic History--The Masters of History, tackles the question of the driving force of humanity's fate: is it empire, money, religion--or something else entirely--that unites us? Sometimes history seems like a laundry list of malevolent monarchs, pompous presidents and dastardly dictators. But are they really the ones in the driving seat? Sapiens: A Graphic History--The Masters of History takes us on an immersive and hilarious ride through the human past to discover the forces that change our world, bring us together, and just as often... tear us apart. Grab a front-row seat to the greatest show on earth, and explore the rise of money, religion and empire. Join our fabulous host Heroda Tush, as she wonders: Which historical superhero will display the power to make civilizations rise and fall? Will Mr. Random prove that luck and circumstance prevail? Will Lady Empire convince us of the irrefutable shaping force of conquerors? Or will Clashwoman beat them all to greatness by reminding us of the endless confrontations that seem to forever plague our species? In this next volume of the bestselling graphic series, Yuval Noah Harari, David Vandermeulen and Daniel Casanave continue to present the complicated story of humankind with wit, empathy and originality. Alongside the unlikely cast of new characters, we are rejoined by the familiar faces of Yuval, Zoe, Professor Saraswati, Bill and Cindy (now Romans), Skyman and Captain Dollar. As they travel through time, space and human drama in search of truth, it's impossible not to wonder: why can't we all just get along? This third installment in the Sapiens: A Graphic History series is an engaging, insightful, and colorful retelling of the story of humankind for curious minds of all ages, and can be browsed through on its own or read in sequence with Volumes One and Two.

This book is no less than a guide to the whole of Western philosophy -- the ideas that have undergirded our civilization for two-and-a-half thousand years. Anthony Kenny tells the story of philosophy from ancient Greece through the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment into the modern world. He introduces us to the great thinkers and their ideas, starting with Plato, Aristotle, and the other founders of Western thought. In the second part of the book he takes us through a thousand years of medieval philosophy, and shows us the rich intellectual legacy of Christian thinkers like Augustine, Aquinas, and Ockham. Moving into the early modern period, we explore the great works of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant, which remain essential reading today. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Hegel, Mill, Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein again transformed the way we see the world. Running though the book are certain themes which have been constant concerns of philosophy since its early beginnings: the fundamental questions of what exists and how we can know about it; the nature of humanity, the mind, truth, and meaning; the place of God in the universe; how we should live and how society should be ordered. Anthony Kenny traces the development of these themes through the centuries: we see how the questions asked and answers offered by the great philosophers of the past remain vividly alive today. Anyone interested in ideas and their history will find this a fascinating and stimulating read

In a period scarred by apprehensions of revolution, war, invasion, poverty, and disease, elite members of society lived in constant fear of what they thought of as the 'mad, bad, and dangerous people'. Boyd Hilton examines the changes in politics and society in the years 1783-1846, and how the raffish and rakish style of eighteenth-century society, having reached a peak in the Regency, then succumbed to the new norms of respectability popularly known as 'Victorianism'. - ;This was a transformative period in English history. In 1783 the country was at one of the lowest points in its fortunes, having just lost its American colonies in warfare. By 1846 it was once more a great imperial nation, as well as the world's strongest power and dominant economy, having benefited from what has sometimes (if misleadingly) been called the 'first industrial revolution'. In the meantime it survived a decade of invasion fears, and emerged victorious from more than twenty years of 'war to the death' against Napoleonic France. But if Britain's external fortunes were in the ascendant, the situation at home remained fraught with peril. The country's population was growing at a rate not experienced by any comparable former society, and its manufacturing towns especially were mushrooming into filthy, disease-ridden, gin-sodden hell-holes, in turn provoking the phantasmagoria of a mad, bad, and dangerous people. It is no wonder that these years should have experienced the most prolonged period of social unrest since the seventeenth century, or that the elite should have been in constant fear of a French-style revolution in England. The governing classes responded to these new challenges and by the mid-nineteenth century the seeds of a settled two-party system and of a more socially interventionist state were both in evidence, though it would have been far too soon to say at that stage whether those seeds would take permanent root. Another consequence of these tensions was the intellectual engagement with society, as for example in the Romantic Movement, a literary phenomenon that brought English culture to the forefront of European attention for the first time. At the same time the country experienced the great religious revival, loosely described under the heading 'evangelicalism'. Slowly but surely, the raffish and rakish style of eighteenth-century society, having reached a peak in the Regency, then succumbed to the new norms of respectability popularly known as 'Victorianism'. - ;A scrupulously complete analysis of political and social change. - Charles Saumarez Smith, The Sunday Telegraph;History writing at its most compelling. - Adam Phillips, The Observer;The range, richness and complexity of Boyd Hilton's text are impossible to convey in summary, and hard fully to appreciate in a single reading. A mastery of the voluminous literature is complimented by an acquaintance with the sources which produce a wealth of illuminating quotation to catch the tones and inflections of the age...The analysis it offers, and the proportions and emphases which it adopts, will galvanize debate for years to come, and make it a contribution to history such as a safer survey, less ambitious in design, enterprising in argument, and integrative in technique, could not be. - Paul Smith, The Times Literary Supplement;The main narrative is interspersed with fascinating essays on science, religion, art, architecture and literature - a generous helping for the many people who will read this book for pleasure rather than profit. - Ben Wilson, The Spectator;Boyd Hilton has produced a tour de force that will stimulate interest in and guide understanding of the period for years to come. - Peter Borsay, BBC History Magazine;A lively and wide-ranging study...[a] comprehensive, intriguing and challenging volume that has proved well worth the wait. - Tristram Hunt, New Statesman;This book, like its companion volumes, takes for its subject English society as a whole, and the Byronic nudge of the title, as well as promising entertainment, is meant to alert us to the idea that the years before the Victorian Reform Acts were ones of violence, apprehension and 18th century debauchery. - David Horspool, The Guardian

In this thorough and illuminating work, Michael Prestwich provides a comprehensive study of Plantagenet England, a dramatic and turbulent period which saw many changes. In politics it saw Simon de Montfort's challenge to the crown in Henry II's reign and it witnessed the deposition of Edward I. In contrast, it also saw the highly successful rules of Edward I and his grandson, Edward III. Political institutions were transformed with the development of parliament and war was a dominant theme: Wales was conquered and the Scottish Wars of Independence started in Edward I's reign, and under Edward III there were triumphs at Crécy and Poitiers. Outside of politics, English society was developing a structure, from the great magnates at the top to the peasantry at the bottom. Economic changes were also significant, from the expansionary period of the thirteenth century to years of difficulty in the fourteenth century, culminating in the greatest demographic disaster of historical times, the Black Death. In this volume in the New Oxford History of England Michael Prestwich brings this fascinating century to life.

A newly revised and updated edition of an award-winning BBC correspondent's magisterial history of the Balkan regionThis unique and lively history of Balkan geopolitics since the early nineteenth century gives readers the essential historical background to more than one hundred years of events in this war-torn area. No other book covers the entire region, or offers such profound insights into the roots of Balkan violence, or explains so vividly the origins of modern Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania. Now updated to include the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, the capture of all indicted war criminals from the Yugoslav wars, and each state's quest for legitimacy in the European Union, The Balkans explores the often catastrophic relationship between the Balkans and the Great Powers, raising some disturbing questions about Western intervention.

A magisterial history that recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness. One of the formative periods of European and world history, the Enlightenment is the fountainhead of modern secular Western values: religious tolerance, freedom of thought, speech and the press, of rationality and evidence-based argument. Yet why, over three hundred years after it began, is the Enlightenment so profoundly misunderstood as controversial, the expression of soulless calculation? The answer may be that, to an extraordinary extent, we have accepted the account of the Enlightenment given by its conservative enemies: that enlightenment necessarily implied hostility to religion or support for an unfettered free market, or that this was “the best of all possible worlds”. Ritchie Robertson goes back into the “long eighteenth century,” from approximately 1680 to 1790, to reveal what this much-debated period was really about. Robertson returns to the era’s original texts to show that above all, the Enlightenment was really about increasing human happiness – in this world rather than the next – by promoting scientific inquiry and reasoned argument. In so doing Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against evils like capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot alongside ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment. In answering the question 'What is Enlightenment?' in 1784, Kant famously urged men and women above all to “have the courage to use your own intellect”. Robertson shows how the thinkers of the Enlightenment did just that, seeking a well-rounded understanding of humanity in which reason was balanced with emotion and sensibility. Drawing on philosophy, theology, historiography and literature across the major western European languages, The Enlightenment is a master-class in big picture history about the foundational epoch of modern times.