Bøger udgivet af McFarland & Company

Bill Ehrhart's experiences in the Vietnam War have defined his life--first as an enlisted member of a Marine infantry battalion, then as an author, poet and teacher who has spent fifty years explicating the war and its consequences in books, lectures and interviews. In these essays he explores a diverse range of topics. They include gun violence and the Second Amendment, American politics and the accelerating destruction of civil society, Afghanistan and other foreign policy misadventures, Israel and Palestine, the nature of patriotism, history as fact and mythology, the blessings of technology, the vast mystery of the universe, the attraction of Grand Tour bicycle racing, the much misunderstood writer Stephen Crane, poets you should know about but probably don't. And more.

Written by a fan, about the fans, and for the fans, this book is about Beatles fandom and excitement for the band as it continues, undiminished, in the 21st century. The author conducted nearly 100 interviews with superfans across the globe, gathering stories that explain their enthusiasm. Readers will meet fans who met and married at Beatlesweek in Liverpool; those who had the chance to go onstage with Paul McCartney, got his autograph on some unusual places on their bodies, and had the signature permanently tattooed; and first-generation fans who saw the Beatles live and remember every detail as if it was yesterday. Noteworthy interviewees include Wings guitarist Laurence Juber; Mark Featherstone-Witty, cofounder of Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts; Bill Heckle, director of the Cavern Club and Magical Mystery Tour Bus in Liverpool; and music publisher David Stark, who now stands by Paul's side at LIPA graduations but started as a good-natured teenage fan who had the guts to ring Ringo's doorbell and meet him at his house. (The book also takes a deep dive into Beatles-related TV shows, Broadway musicals, movies, businesses, Sirius XM DJs, tribute bands and more.)

Raul Villamia's childhood in Cuba revolved around baseball and bloodshed. The violence that he witnessed led him to support Castro's revolution, and his brother Mario introduced him to Castro's 26th of July Movement (M267). Minor league baseball brought him to the United States, where he hoped to pursue a career in the majors, and left Villamia uniquely placed to aid Castro's revolution from abroad. From Tampa, New York City, Bridgeport, Union City, Miami, and Key West, the Villamias, Angel Perez-Vidal, Howard K. Davis and others supported Castro through fundraising, collecting supplies for the revolutionaries, propaganda campaigns, and arms smuggling. Raul rubbed elbows with Castro and his top men and with American gangsters who did business in Cuba. He was hounded by the FBI, and his brother Mario is mentioned in the Warren Commission Report. This memoir recalls Villamia's experience as an advocate for Castro in the United States and tells the story of those in America whose efforts helped to oust Batista.

From the beginning, horror has been part of the cinema landscape. Despite some of the earliest genre films with gay directors such as F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu) and James Whale (Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein), LGBTQIA characters have rarely been portrayed in full view. For decades, filmmakers have included "coded" content in their films with the homosexual experience translated into censor-friendly subtext for consumption by general audiences. Gradually, LGBTQIA characters and themes have moved from the background to the foreground as the horror genre has grown along with its audience's tastes and attitudes. Likewise, more and more LGBTQIA writers and directors have begun to offer their queer-centric takes on scary movies and today, "queer horror" is a thriving film genre. With more than 900 entries, this critical filmography is a comprehensive, critical, yet playful examination of the history of LGBTQIA content in horror films. Eight journalistic contributors dig into every era of scary movies, including the early silents, pre- and post-Hays Code content, grindhouse sleaze, LGBTQIA indies, and megaplex studio releases. From Whale's The Old Dark House (1932) to Don Mancini's Chucky films and everything in between, this collection explores what can be found at the intersection of "LGBTQIA" and "horror" in the film industry.

The 1982 St. Louis Cardinals played an entertaining style of baseball built on speed and defense. The roster was constructed and piloted by Whitey Herzog, a baseball visionary who tailored his team for the AstroTurf and spacious dimensions of Busch Stadium. Herzog traded for closer Bruce Sutter, speedsters Lonnie Smith and Willie McGee, and defensive wizard Ozzie Smith, adding to a talented roster that included the likes of Bob Forsch, Keith Hernandez, and George Hendrick. The result was an exhilarating season filled with winning streaks, numerous obstacles, and one unforgettable steal of home. The Cardinals won the National League pennant despite hitting the fewest home runs in the major leagues, then overcame baseball's most powerful team--the Milwaukee Brewers--in the World Series. This exhaustive account chronicles the Cardinals from Herzog's rebuild to the final out of the Fall Classic. Hundreds of sources, including original interviews, were compiled to revisit a championship season and tell the backstories of an eclectic group of players who reached baseball's pinnacle.

This richly detailed examination of two forms of American entertainment focuses on the various ways that radio stations and air personalities have been depicted in motion pictures, from 1926's The Radio Detective to more recent films like 2022's Halloween Ends. Newly updated and revised chapters cover the cinematic portrayals of various aspects of radio, including disc jockeys, sports broadcasts, religious programs and abnormal personalities on the air. Such films as The Big Broadcast (1932), Reveille with Beverly (1943), Mister Rock and Roll (1957), WUSA (1970), Radio Days (1987), Private Parts (1997), We Are Marshall (2006) and Straight Outta Compton (2015) provide fascinating insights into not only their own times but also the historical eras that some of these films have attempted to recreate.

This book examines adaptations of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories in film, radio and television. Part One covers adaptations prior to 2013, including portrayals by Alec Guinness, Kenneth More, and others, as well as German and Italian versions. Part Two focuses on the BBC series Father Brown, launched in 2013 with Mark Williams starring in the title role. It provides information about the series' creation and production along with a helpful episode guide, and it analyzes critical and audience responses to the show.

This volume profiles about 300 African American (and a few white) performers, organizations and series broadcast during radio's "Golden Age"--the years 1921 through 1955. Many of these personalities and programs are chronicled in more depth here than in any previous publication, while several are covered here for the first time. The entries reveal the rich diversity in radio programming created by black talent and intended for black audiences during a time that has often been portrayed as nearly devoid of a black presence. There are two appendices: a chronology of debuts and notable events, and a week-by-week episode guide of both the pioneering African American radio series The Negro Achievement Hour and The Negro Art Group Hour, both of which debuted in 1928. There is a bibliography and a comprehensive index.

For the reader interested in learning more about working in sports--or the fan that wants a look at what those inside the radio booth go through day-to-day--this book contains the secrets and successes of minor league baseball broadcasters with a combined century of experience telling the story of America's pastime. A host of decorated industry veterans discuss their careers, sharing tales of baseball greats from before they were famous, players who didn't make it past Class-A, the zaniest promotional exercises to hit the market, some of small-town America's greatest cuisine, the highs of winning a championship and the lows of being stranded on the highway for hours.

Errett Lujan served during World War II with the U.S. Army 200th/515th Coast Artillery (Anti-aircraft) Regiment in the Philippines, the largest regiment on the islands when the Japanese invaded just hours after Pearl Harbor. The regiment was credited as both the first and the last to fire on the enemy before surrendering. Lujan survived the invasion, the Bataan Death March and more than three years in POW camps. After the war, he said little to his family about his harrowing experiences. Written by his daughter, this lovingly researched narrative pieces together the story of his service and his imprisonment, drawing on Lujan's diaries and letters, and original interviews with 200th/515th survivors and former POWs.

Greatly expanded and updated from the 1977 original, this new edition explores the evolution of the modern horror film, particularly as it reflects anxieties associated with the atomic bomb, the Cold War, 1960s violence, sexual liberation, the Reagan revolution, 9/11 and the Iraq War. It divides modern horror into three varieties (psychological, demonic and apocalyptic) and demonstrates how horror cinema represents the popular expression of everyday fears while revealing the forces that influence American ideological and political values. Directors given a close reading include Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg, Guillermo Del Toro, Michael Haneke, Robert Aldrich, Mel Gibson and George A. Romero. Additional material discusses postmodern remakes, horror franchises and Asian millennial horror. This book also contains more than 950 frame grabs and a very extensive filmography.

The persona of Edward de Vere represents a contrast to the canonical, Stratfordian image of Shakespeare. His adulterous affair with a teenage girl half his age, his complicity in acts of treason against Queen Elizabeth, and the bankruptcy of his earldom due to his lavish spending all combine to paint a picture of a man contrary to the Stratfordian ideal. However, it is this unattractive portrayal of him that supports the argument that de Vere wrote the sonnets, since the sonnets themselves offer up underlying messages of ridicule, deception, avarice, and sexual obsession that doggedly champion the author's own best interests above others. This work presents an Oxfordian reading of the sonnets and the problematic life of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

This volume is the seventeenth in a series dedicated to presenting the latest findings in the fields of comparative drama and performance. Featuring eleven essays from the 2021 Comparative Drama Conference in Orlando, it includes new research on contemporary plays by Anne Washburn, Will Arbery, Matthew Lopez, Anna Deveare Smith and Qui Nguyen. Chapters also present new research for classic plays such as Measure for Measure and Cyrano, arguments for teaching science through drama, changing approaches for training actors, and using the insights of neuroscience to lure audiences back to live theatre. This year's volume also features a new interview with playwright Anne Washburn and seven book reviews centered on drama and theatre studies.

Medieval literature makes it plain that the Battle of the Sexes has been alive and raging since at least the Middle Ages. As depicted by Martin Le Franc in Le Champion des Dames, this battle takes on literally epic proportions. Translated from the original Middle French by Steven Millen Taylor, the fourth book of Le Franc's poem comes to life for the modern English reader as The Trial of Womankind. This allegorical poem from the mid-fifteenth century offers a dynamic dialogue between both sides of the Querelle des Femmes, the "debate over women." In rhyming octaves, Le Franc constructs an allegorical courtroom where two attorneys named Free Will and Slow Wit argue, respectively, the cases for and against women. Calling upon classical and contemporary examples from the Nine Muses and the Queen of Sheba to the Popess Joan and Joan of Arc, the attorneys tell a lively story while making plain the political, religious, and social issues of the time. With subtle humor, keen insight, and compelling erudition, Le Franc invites his readers to participate in this exchange over questions still relevant today. This translation faithfully renders the literal meaning of the Middle French text while maintaining the original ababbcbc rhyme scheme and stanzaic structure essential to the voice of the work. With historical introduction and notes.

Examples of ineffective and even negative leaders are all too abundant in sports. Poor leadership attitudes are a great loss for players, coaches, teams, schools, communities and society as a whole. To become productive leaders, coaches, administrators and parents need guidance and resources. This book reveals what the most revered scholars and icons from business and other leadership fields know about leadership theory, research and practice--and applies the results to the world of sport. This is a book parents, coaches and administrators can use to maximize their own leadership potential as well as teach leadership to those under their charge.

Three men's lives, told through the story of one song. Jerry Jeff Walker, the singer and writer behind the classic hit "Mr. Bojangles," never would have expected that his song, inspired by an experience in a New Orleans jail cell, would make Richard Nixon cry, or that it would be covered by Sammy Davis, Jr., the entertainment giant and, controversially, a supporter of Nixon. This work, told through the perspective of writer, performer and listener, traces these three men's overlapping journeys through the American consciousness. Chapters discuss the history of Walker's song, Davis's rise from rags to riches, Nixon's journey from grocer's son to president, and more.

This edited collection of essays details a wide-ranging selection of some of the most sensationally successful theatre productions of the long Victorian era, the real "blockbusters" of the age. Ranging from the world of operetta and music hall to spectacular drama and sensational melodrama, the productions included provide the reader with definitive proof that the phenomenon of the "smash hit" show is not restricted to modern Broadway. This is a world that encompassed the ground-breaking stage technology of Ben Hur, the wide political impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin and the sheer creative originality of L'Enfant Prodigue. Supporting the "star" system, productions featured some of the greatest names of the period - Sir Henry Irving, Sir Johnston Forbes Robertson, James O'Neill and Dion Boucicault. This was the very dawning of a new media age, which saw many of the productions transfer to the new world of silent cinema for the very first time

In the 1870s, Gus Hornsby spread the game of American football around the world like an evangelist and helped establish it in the U.S. heartland. Hornsby seemed destined for greatness as a journalist, inventor, explorer and entrepreneur. His arrogance, greed and an intractable gambling addiction, however, drove him to criminality and cast him into obscurity. But this public ruin led to his greatest accomplishment in prison: personal redemption. Surprisingly, Hornsby's meteoric rise and fall intersected with towering influencers of the time, including the women and men who would pioneer the "first-wave" feminist movement in the United States. This book explores their unexpected connections and interweaves their stories--along with details of the first American football game in the Midwest--to reveal elements of a pivotal moment in American history, both in feminism and sports. More than a biography of a person, it is a story about America--brash, imaginative and seemingly limitless in resources and creativity, but overly self-assured and wildly reckless.

Kentucky is richly blessed with rivers. This book tells the stories of three of the most beautiful and historic: the Rolling Fork, the Nolin, and the Rough. Each is an unpredictable force of nature flowing through a land that varies from wide, sunny meadows to dark, rock-bound hollows. Chapters describe the people who lived in the river valleys, including pioneers, frontier preachers, a future president, cave explorers, Confederate and Union soldiers, desperate killers, hardscrabble farmers, and inspired visionaries. Sometimes they were wasteful and violent and vain; at other times they were inventive and graceful and kind. Their descendants realized that survival had come to mean something new: living in harmony with the land and the rivers.

In January 1966, Alan Napier became a household name on ABC's hit series Batman (1966-1968) as Alfred Pennyworth, loyal butler to the show's title character. This "overnight success" came after 16 years of stage work (and the occasional film) in his native England and 26 years of film and television work (and the occasional play) in the United States. In the early 1970s, Napier wrote an autobiography, detailing his childhood as a "poor relation" of the famous Birmingham political family the Chamberlains (Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was a cousin), and his collaborations over the years with the likes of John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, George Bernard Shaw, Noel Coward, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger and Alfred Hitchcock. Almost 30 years after Napier's death, James Bigwood, who first read the manuscript in 1975 when interviewing the actor for a Films in Review profile, has prepared it for publication. This is Alan Napier's story in his own words, annotated and updated, with dozens of rare photographs.

Since ancient times, explorers and adventurers have captured popular imagination with their frightening narratives of travels gone wrong. Usually, these stories heavily feature the exotic or unknown, and can transform any journey into a nightmare. Stories of such horrific happenings have a long and rich history that stretches from folktales to contemporary media narratives. This work presents eighteen essays that explore the ways in which these texts reflect and shape our fear and fascination surrounding travel, posing new questions about the "geographies of evil" and how our notions of "terrible places" and their inhabitants change over time. The volume's five thematic sections offer new insights into how power, privilege, uncanny landscapes, misbegotten quests, hellish commutes and deadly vacations can turn our travels into terror.

Whether it's Sherlock Holmes solving crimes or Sheldon and Leonard geeking out over sci-fi, geniuses are central figures on many of television's most popular series. They are often enigmatic, displaying superhuman intellect while struggling with mundane aspects of daily life. This collection of new essays explores why TV geniuses fascinate us and how they shape our perceptions of what it means to be highly intelligent. Examining series like Criminal Minds, The Big Bang Theory, Bones, Elementary, Fringe, House, The Mentalist, Monk, Sherlock, Leverage and others, scholars from a variety of disciplines discuss how television both reflects and informs our cultural understanding of genius.

Drawing upon historical, archaeological, and mythical examples from around the world, this book reveals how societal views of female empowerment and authority can be directly traced to the reverence once directed towards female warriors, priestesses, healers, queens, pharaohs, and goddesses. Communities which revered women as sacred idols of their belief systems were far more likely to place women in prominent positions of social or political influence, since their members were quite used to envisioning power in the hands of a strong or divine woman. The book also explores how goddesses were purposefully devalued during the rise of patriarchal civilizations, thus restricting the social importance of earthly women and their accompanying rights. One such instance can be found in Greek mythology's Gaia: once revered as a dominant earth mother, she was replaced by a division of less-powerful figures with more socially acceptable feminine roles, such as Aphrodite, the goddess of love (typically held up as an object of male lust); Hera, the goddess of marriage and childbirth (often portrayed as obsessed with jealousy over the extramarital exploits of her husband); and the mostly silent goddess of the hearth, Hestia. The devaluing of once revered goddesses appeared in quite distinct ways across different cultures; thus, this book breaks down its chapters by global region, including Europe, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, India, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania.

In 1911 Cora Wilson Stewart founded the Moonlight Schools in Rowan County, Kentucky, an innovative night program that taught illiterate adults to read. Hoping that 150 people would attend the first classes, Stewart was amazed that over 1,200 men and women enrolled. She quickly developed reading material for these men and women that appealed to them instead of the children's texts that most educators were using with adults. With the success of the Moonlight Schools, Stewart moved forward in her crusade against illiteracy; she quickly became the most prominent advocate for the cause on both the national and international scene. Stewart took the fight against illiteracy at a time when it was an accepted part of American life. She shocked the nation when she pointed out that 25 percent of the men who signed up for the draft in 1917 could neither read nor write. From her beginnings in the mountains of Kentucky, she went on to chair the Illiteracy Section of the World Conference of Education Associations five times; she founded the National Illiteracy Crusade in 1926. She even received one vote for president at the 1920 Democratic convention. Her crusade came despite the fact she was a victim of domestic abuse who suffered through three failed marriages. Her life reflects the challenges faced by female reformers in the early part of the 20th century.

Readers drawn to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague, or Theo Colburn's Our Stolen Future will appreciate this work by Thomas Kerns as well. The growing epidemics of chemically induced illnesses from long-term, low-dose exposure to toxicants in both developed and developing nations are being studied by serious researchers. Questions are being raised as to how societies will deal with these new problems. Kerns's book is the first to directly address the ethical dimension of managing environmental health and ubiquitous toxicants (such as solvents, pesticides, and artificial fragrances). The work includes recent medical literature on chronic health effects from exposure to toxicants and the social costs of these disorders; relevant historic and human rights documents; recommendations for public policy and legislation; and primary obstacles faced by public health advocates. College instructors and students, victims of chemical sensitivity disorders, public health workers, scientists, and policymakers who are interested in the challenge of these emerging epidemics will find Kerns's text highly informative.

This second edition offers strategies, tips, and guidance on how to promote equitable student growth across content areas. The essays in this book complement the work of school board members, administrators and community stakeholders in school districts with diverse student populations. Authors offer both empirically-based and auto-ethnographic accounts about equity policy frameworks, school counseling, resource officers in urban schools, trauma-informed practices and bias disruptors. Each of the 12 essays provides templates for educators and administrators across age ranges and institution types. As demographics grow more diverse, school leaders will look for ideas to improve campus policy and practice. The contributors to this work deliver actionable steps across departments.

The 1980s is remembered as a time of big hair, synthetic music, and microwave cookery. It is also remembered as the heyday of conservative politics, socioeconomic inequality, and moral panics. It is dichotomously remembered as either a nostalgic age of innocence or a regressive moral wasteland, depending on who you ask, and when. But, most of all, it is remembered. In retro fashion trends, in '80s-based film and television narratives, and through countless rebooted movies, video games, superheroes, and even political slogans imploring us to Make America Great Again (Again). More than merely a historical period, "the '80s" has grown into a contested myth, ever-evolving through the critical and expressive lens of popular culture. This book explores the many shapes the '80s mythos has taken across a diverse array of media. Essays examine television series such as Stranger Things, Cobra Kai, and POSE, films such as Dallas Buyers Club, Summer of '84, and Chocolate Babies, as well as video games, pop music, and toys. Collectively, these essays explore how representations of the 1980s influence the way we think about our past, our present, and our future.

The ravages of climate change emerged as a central issue in the 21st century. In the U.S., the political divide over climate change and how to confront it expanded. While Democrats became increasingly determined to join international efforts led by the United Nations to combat climate change, Republicans largely balked. The country embraced climate leadership when led by Obama and Biden but when led by Bush and Trump, a rebuff ensued. Those opposing climate action included the fossil fuel industries and others that sought to profit from the status quo. Climate crisis activism of the 21st century is the story of the tension between those wishing to continue business as usual and those seeing their futures directly impacted by such choices and demanding climate justice. This is a guide to understanding climate policy and activism, highlighting the participants, the progression of environmental science, and the pendulum of national policy under changing parties in power.

Generations ago, immigrants came to the U.S. from Europe and Africa in large numbers. Today they are arriving mainly from Latin America and Asia. Most are documented but many are not. While the federal and most state governments have done little beyond controlling borders and ports of entry to address pressing immigration issues, public officials and community organizations at the local level have been advancing commonsense, pragmatic solutions to accommodate the newest members of American society. This collection of essays provides a handbook for developing good county- and municipal-level immigrant services. The contributors cover a diverse range of trends, issues and practices, including immigration reform, language access, identification and driver's licensing, employment, education, voting, public safety and legal assistance.

In the mid-1980s, the American beer market offered far fewer options than what is available today. When microbreweries began to come onto the scene, distributors and retailers were skeptical of their new beers and did not believe that these new American brews would be able to compete with imports. Newer, smaller brewers also had to overcome antiquated laws and strong consumer brand loyalty to major domestic beers. After years of struggles, microbrewers established a foothold in the American beer market, popularized new and previously underappreciated styles, and set the stage for a massive proliferation of nanobreweries across the country. This book takes a look at these microbreweries--prime examples of American enterprise and innovation--from an industry outsider's perspective. The author explores a select number of small breweries from around the United States, covering their signature brews, histories, and what it took for them to claim their niches in the marketplace.