<p>The Sitcom Class Wars: The 20th Century. By Ray Starman. Troy, NY: Troy Bookmakers, 2014. In The Sitcom Class Wars: The 20th Century, Ray Starman provides the reader with a sitcom- based look at how class was represented on television in the twentieth century from The Goldbergs to King of Queens. Starman argues that class &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2015/07/04/social-class-and-sitcoms/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Social Cla

<p>Virtual Unreality. By Charles Seife. New York: Viking, 2014.  This book’s thesis is implied in its title. Mathematician/journalist Charles Seife notes ways in which the Internet has revolutionized the globe by democratizing access to knowledge. As with many good things, blessings come with downsides. The same powerful tool that delivers information also disseminates misinformation. Although &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2015/07/04/online-scams-it-pays-to-be-skeptica

<p>Tintseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood. By William J. Mann. New York: Harper, 2014. &nbsp; Who killed Billy Taylor? In 1922, William Desmond Taylor, president of the Motion Pictures Directors Association, was discovered on the floor of his Los Angeles bungalow with a .38 slug lodged in his body. Writer William &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2015/06/03/who-killed-billy-taylor-hollywood-in-the-1920s/" class="more-link">Continue reading <spa

<p>Black Baseball Entrepreneurs 1902-1931: The Negro National and Eastern Colored Leagues. By Michael E. Lomax. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2014. &nbsp; Those researching African American baseball recognize University of Iowa sports history professor Michael Lomax as a go-to source. His latest project, Black Baseball Entrepreneurs, 1902-1931 is part two of his ongoing project to &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2015/05/29/the-business-side-of-black-baseball/"

<p>I like to read “period” novels whenever I teach a U.S. history survey course. I unshelf  Howells and Twain when I teach the Gilded Age, dust off Steinbeck for the 1930s, and dive into Angelou and Walker to get an African-American perspective. With the semester winding down, I’ve been reading about the 1990s. Recent novels &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2015/04/21/zeitgeist-novels-for-those-teaching-the-1990s/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-re

<p>&nbsp; Dungeons &amp; Dreamers: A Story of How Computer Games Created a Global Community. Second Edition. By Brad King and John Borland, ETC Press, 2-14. &nbsp; Revising their 2003 first edition (subtitled: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic ) Brad King and John Borland set off on their own adventure to show &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2015/01/07/dungeons-dreams-review/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Dungeons

<p>&nbsp; The Civil War in 50 Objects. By Harold Holzer and the New-York Historical Society. New York: Viking, 2013. In a fascinating departure from the usual narrative accounts of Civil War history, Harold Holzer has assembled a text in which sundry stories are told using—as points of reference—physical artifacts from the era. Holzer, a Fellow &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2014/10/30/the-civil-war-in-50-objects/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-

<p>Indians and Wannabes: Native American Powwow Dancing in the Northeast and Beyond, by Ann M. Axtmann, Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2013. Note: This book won NEPCA&#8217;s 2013 Peter Rollins Prize as the best book on a popular/American culture subject.  In Ann M. Axtmann’s first published book, she explores Native American powwows, specifically in &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2014/10/15/ann-axtmann-wins-nepca-book-prize/" class="more-link">Continue r

<p>A Working People: A History of African American Workers Since Emancipation Steven A. Reich. Lanham, MD: Rowman &amp; Littlefield Publishers, 2013. &nbsp;  In 1982, William H. Harris published The Harder We Run, a concise narrative of black workers since the end of slavery that has been used in scores of undergraduate labor and African-American history &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2014/09/22/new-book-on-african-american-workers/" class="more-link">Continue reading <

<p>Donn Piatt: Gadfly of the Gilded Age. By Peter Bridges. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2012.   The word ‘gadfly’ references those whose probing questions challenge constituted authority. It can also mean an annoyance of either insect or human form. Gilded Age journalist Donn Piatt (1819-91) was a social critic and a crank–the sort &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2014/09/15/don-piatt-gilded-age-gadfly/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-rea

<p>New Books in Pop Culture (<a href="http://newbooksinpopculture.com/" rel="nofollow">http://newbooksinpopculture.com/</a>) is currently seeking hosts interested in conducting interviews with authors of new books on popular culture. Hosting the channel is a good way to bring the work of scholars of popular cuture to the attention of large audiences. Interested parties should write Marshall Poe at <a href="mailto:marshallpoe@gmail.com">marshallpoe@gmail.com</a>. New Books in

<p>Modern Food, Moral Food: Self –Control, Science and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century. By Helen Zoe Veit. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. &nbsp; This volume is a study of food habits in the Progressive Era. The Progressive desire for good, clean, and moral government carried over &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2014/07/27/modern-food-moral-food-a-review/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-read

<p>Friday Night Fighter: Gaspar “Indio” Ortega and the Golden Age of Television Boxing.  By Troy Rondinone. University of Illinois Press, 2013. &nbsp; Troy Rondinone’s book is a biography of Gaspar Ortega, a Mexican-born boxer whose career spanned the years from 1953 through 1965. Ortega won 131 of 176 bouts. Ortega a tall, long armed welterweight &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2014/05/28/remembering-the-friday-night-fights/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span cla

<p>One Summer: America, 1927. By Bill Bryson. New York: Doubleday, 2013. ISBN: 978-0767919401. Travel, science, humor, language, memoir, history–in the past thirty years few writers have matched Bill Bryson’s observational skills, acerbic wit, sense of wonder, or appreciation for irony. For his twenty-second book, Bryson takes an in-depth look at the summer of 1927 when, &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2014/03/21/one-summer-a-great-book-about-american-culture-in-the-1920

<p>One Popular Culture Text To Rule Them All:  Teaching Popular Culture with the Right Text   Popular Culture in American History (2nd edition).  By Jim Cullen, ed. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013; Popular Culture: A User’s Guide (2nd edition). By Susie O’Brien and Imre Szeman. Nelson Education, 2010; Discovering Popular Culture. By Anna Tomasino, Pearson/Longman, 2006; With Amusement for All: &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2014/03/01/evaluating-pop-culture-texts/" class="more-li

<p>Detroit: An American Autopsy. By Charlie LeDuff. Penguin, 2013. ISBN: 978-0-14312446-7.   &nbsp; Charlie LeDuff’s portrait of Detroit is horrifying and uncompromising. It’s guys who take $20 and the promise of a truck to torch a house, of street walkers turning tricks inside of derelict auto factories, of fried corpses hanging from the live wires &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2014/01/31/charlie-leduff-warns-that-detroit-could-be-your-future/" class="more-link">Conti

<p>Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator. By Ryan Holiday. New York: Portfolio Penguin, 2013. ISBN: 978-1-59184-628-4.   How bad are things in what has been dubbed the “lame-stream media?” If Ryan Holiday is to be believed, Fox News is indeed “fair and balanced” when compared to online sites such as Gawker, The &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2013/11/07/ryan-holliday-book-revealing-and-frustrating/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen

<p>The Journal of Popular Romance Studies is currently expanding its book review section and is seeking interested reviewers. The JPRS is the is the only peer-reviewed,academic journal to focus on scholarship on romantic love in global popular culture, now or in the past, in fiction and in reality, from any disciplinary perspective. Previously published work has focused on TV, film, popular music, gaming, &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2013/10/31/journal-of-popular-roma

<p>The Long Road to Antietam: How the Civil War Became a Revolution. Richard Slotkin. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. ISBN: 97808740665. &nbsp; Wesleyan University professor emeritus Richard Slotkin is among the nation’s most respected military historians. That’s a discipline that hasn’t been fashionable for a while. Luckily Slotkin also excels at integrating social history &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2013/10/11/long-road-to-antietam-where-military-social-history-meet/

<p>The Becoming of Age: Cinematic Visions of Mind, Body and Identity in Later Life. By Pamela H. Gravagne. McFarland and Co.: North Carolina and London, 2013. Pamela Gravagne, who teaches courses in age and gender studies, does not have time on her side. Members of what Tom Brokaw dubbed the “Greatest Generation” slide away by the thousands &hellip; <a href="https://nepca.blog/2013/09/12/book-review-the-becoming-of-age/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-