Show Biz From Vaude To Video

For fifty years, the newsreel was a fixture in American movie theaters. Released twice a week, less than ten minutes long, each had news footage that combined journalism with entertainment. With the advent of television news programs after World War II, newsreels began to be obsolete, but they remain the first instances of moving image photographic journalism and were for decades a unique source of information—and misinformation. This history details the full span of the American newsreel from 1911 to 1967, discussing the European forerunners, changes in the American version over time, and the ethical and unethical use of newsreels in present-day television documentaries. Photographs, bibliography and index.

A major three-volume bibliography, including an additional supplement, of an annotated listing of American Studies monographs published between 1900 and 1988.

A unique volume, Inventing Times Square approaches the subject of twentieth-century American city culture through a multidimensional examination of one quintessential urban space: Times Square. Ranging in time from 1905, when the crossroad was given its present name, through to the current plans for redevelopment, the authors examine Times Square as economic hub, real estate bonanza, entertainment center, advertising medium, architectural experiment, and erotic netherworld. Though the volume centers on Times Square, the essays venture much further into urban history and American social history, revealing in the process how Times Square reflected—even epitomized—America as it became an urban consumer culture.

Three exposés of corruption—behind the NFL, the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa, and Ronald Reagan—from an investigative reporter who “never relents” (The Washington Post). Interference: A shocking exposé of widespread corruption and mob influence throughout the National Football League—on the field, in the owners’ boxes, and in the corporate suites. “[A] true and terrifying picture of a business whose movers and shakers seem to have more connections to gambling and the mob than to touchdowns and Super Bowls.” —Keith Olbermann The Hoffa Wars: The definitive portrait of the powerful, corruption-ridden Teamsters union and its legendary president, Jimmy Hoffa—organizer, gangster, convict, and conspirator—whose disappearance in 1975 remains one of the great unsolved mysteries. “Mr. Moldea’s view of [the Hoffa] wars, which reached its greatest intensity when Robert Kennedy was Attorney General, may explain not only Mr. Hoffa’s disappearance, but the assassination of John Kennedy as well.” —The Wall Street Journal Dark Victory: A “smoldering indictment” of the corrupt influences that rescued Ronald Reagan’s acting career, made him millions (resulting in a federal grand jury hearing), backed his political career, and shaped his presidency (Library Journal). “[Moldea] has, through sheer tenacity, amassed an avalanche of ominous and unnerving facts. [Dark Victory is] a book about power, ego, and the American way.” —Los Angeles Times

This book shows eminent actors performing under stringent conditions in vaudeville. It was a strange notion in 1900 that leading lights of the legitimate stage would ever join a bill of 'turns', with everything from song-and-dance to criminals regaling crowds with their exploits. It chronicles renowned actors showing rough fare in rough times.

But the book also uncovers a host of marginalized figures - from the South Asian dancer Mohammed Ismail, to the African American pantomimist Johnny Hudgins, to the African American blues singer Alberta Hunter, to the white burlesque dancer Faith Dane - who were equally interested in positioning themselves as subjects rather than objects of property, as possessive individuals rather than exchangeable commodities. Choreographic copyright, the book argues, has been a site for the reinforcement of gendered white privilege as well as for challenges to it.