Lucky Strikes and a Three Martini Lunch: Thinking About Television's Mad Men explores the attributes of the AMC series that allow it to be such a popular and vital contribution to contemporary cultural discourse. Set in the 1960s in New York, the Emmy and Peabody-winning series Mad Men follows the competitive, seductive, and often times ruthless lives of the men and women of Madison Avenue's advertising agencies. Many alluring and captivating qualities constitute the Mad Men experience: the way it evokes nostalgia, even from those who did not live in the era being portrayed; its interrogations into identities, and how these interrogations of the past illuminate viewers' concepts of the present; and, the compelling (and often heartbreaking) relationships between characters who are trying to make their way in an ever-changing and increasingly complex world. It also includes: the titillation of the characters' discovery of the powers of mass mediated communication and its abilities to allow learning, information sharing, manipulation, and connection; and, of course, the striking differences in sex roles and sexuality in the workplace that simultaneously celebrates and challenges views of gendered progress in contemporary times. Twenty-six authors - most coming from academic posts but others from practitioner, administrator, or cultural critic positions-come together to explore these themes through eighteen engaging and thoughtful essays and an illuminating introduction, each unique to this collection and exploring a particular aspect of the series through a different academic lens.

Product Description: Early Saline County was a land rich in Native American history. Only a few settlers migrated to the area prior to the railroad development that started in 1867. Milling and grains, livestock, and even gypsum mining all influenced the growth of Saline County...read more

Product Description: In his latest book, Patrick Brantlinger probes the state of contemporary America. Brantlinger takes aim at neoliberal economists, the Tea Party movement, gun culture, immigration, waste value, surplus people, the war on terror, technological determinism, and globalization...read more

Product Description: Throughout history, different cultural traditions, all of them with a considerable linguistic diversity, have flourished and converged in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern regions. The International Conference of Junior Researchers in Mediterranean and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures provided a transverse and interdisciplinary framework of discussion and reflection on the intellectual and cultural production of the Mediterranean and the Near East, from its earliest stages to the present...read more

Product Description: This volume is dedicated to the memory of Charles E. Timberlake. The contributors include his former colleagues and students. The first section deals with "Civil Society in Russia and Eastern Europe." Alla Barabtarlo discusses unfinished research conducted by Charles Timberlake on the liberal activist Ivan Petrunkevich...read more

Product Description: Irish music enjoyed popularity across Europe and North America in the second half of the twentieth century. Regional circumstances created a unique reception for such music in the English Midlands. This book is a musical ethnography of Birmingham 1950-2010...read more

Product Description: Merseyside: Culture and Place demonstrates how Liverpool and Merseyside have a rich, fascinating and sometimes controversial cultural history. The result of a conference held to mark Liverpool s year as European Capital of Culture in 2008, this interdisciplinary volume contains chapters by scholars working in a variety of fields, including Geography, Art, English, Marketing and History...read more

Product Description: Du pain et des jeux, mais aussi des spectacles, des promenades, de la lecture, du sport, des banquets ou des voyages: l'Antiquite a eleve le divertissement en art de vivre. L'Empire romain a fait davantage: il l'a etendu a tous, octroyant a chaque homme libre, en meme temps que la citoyennete, le plus grand des privileges, le loisir...read more

Product Description: This book sets out to explore the meaning of votive stelae to the individuals who dedicated them, and the nature of the events that they commemorate, during the Egyptian Ramesside Period (1295-1069 BC). By reading the stelae as a form of self-presentation, Exell aims to uncover both the social processes that it encapsulates and the social position or role of its dedicator in society...read more

Product Description: Bennington is the oldest incorporated town in Vermont, and the area is one of the most historic parts of the state. The well-known story of Bennington's early days includes tales of the Battle of Bennington and the adventures of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys...read more