A comparative survey of the major approaches to Western acting since the 19th century

A comprehensive look at Elvis' days on tour, from his earliest performance in a school gym through his later years performing in Las Vegas, accompanied by photographs, clippings, and tickets from the Graceland archives

Movin' On Up takes a fun ride through the then-and-now of a great city and its ball club. The city and its team have cooked up a partnership as strong and as strange as scrapple and toast over the past 121 years. Since 1883, the Phillies have been on the move-at times slowly, many times glacially, and sometimes quickly. Movin' On Up layers the present on the past by revisiting the places the Fightin' Phils once called their new home. But Movin' On Up is really about people, past, and present-not only players, but others who help and helped Philly move on up to the fabulous sports town we know today. The journey rolls along humorous and poignant episodes, old and new, that have splashed Philly and its fan with the signature color that both fascinates and infuriates outsiders. As this new millennium dashes toward the midpoint of its first decade, Philly's Phillies have a new park, a new team, and a new attitude. Well, maybe the attitude isn't all that new, as you'll read-and ne

Muddy Waters invented electric blues and created the template for the rock and roll band and its wild lifestyle. Gordon excavates Muddy's mysterious past and early career, taking us from Mississippi fields to postwar Chicago street corners.

Gordon's critically acclaimed and richly entertaining exploration of the birthplace of rock and roll is peopled with Delta bluesmen, manic deejays, matinee cowboys and Elvis.

The Holocaust in Italian Culture, 1944–2010 is the first major study of how postwar Italy confronted, or failed to confront, the Holocaust. Fascist Italy was the model for Nazi Germany, and Mussolini was Hitler's prime ally in the Second World War. But Italy also became a theater of war and a victim of Nazi persecution after 1943, as resistance, collaboration, and civil war raged. Many thousands of Italians—Jews and others—were deported to concentration camps throughout Europe. After the war, Italian culture produced a vast array of stories, images, and debate through which it came to terms with the Holocaust's difficult legacy. Gordon probes a rich range of cultural material as he paints a picture of this shared encounter with the darkest moment of twentieth-century history. His book explores aspects of Italian national identity and memory, offering a new model for analyzing the interactions between national and international images of the Holocaust.

Traces the rise and fall of the original Stax Records, touching upon the racial politics in Memphis in the 1960s, the personal histories of the sibling founders, and the prominent musicians they featured.

"Blues, being the wellspring of all American music for over a century, is always worth studying. Robert does it right." --Keith Richards "An emotional map of musical Memphis. If you don't know these characters, let Robert Gordon introduce you." --Elvis Costello "Robert Gordon's book is proof that Southern heritage is American heritage, and all sorts of people--black and white, familiar and strange, dead and alive--are what it is." --Greil Marcus Profiles and stories of Southern music from the acclaimed author of Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion. The fabled city of Memphis has been essential to American music--home of the blues, the birthplace of rock and roll, a soul music capital. We know the greatest hits, but celebrated author Robert Gordon takes us to the people and places history has yet to record. A Memphis native, he whiles away time in a crumbling duplex with blues legend Furry Lewis, stays up late with barrelhouse piano player Mose Vinson, and sips homemade whiskey at Junior Kimbrough's churning house parties. A passionate listener, he hears modern times deep in the grooves of old records by Lead Belly and Robert Johnson. The interconnected profiles and stories in Memphis Rent Party convey more than a region. Like mint seeping into bourbon, Gordon gets into the wider world. He beholds the beauty of mistakes with producer Jim Dickinson (Replacements, Rolling Stones), charts the stars with Alex Chilton (Box Tops, Big Star), and mulls the tragedy of Jeff Buckley's fatal swim. Gordon's Memphis inspires Cat Power, attracts Townes Van Zandt, and finds James Carr always singing at the dark end of the street. A rent party is when friends come together to hear music, dance, and help a pal through hard times; it's a celebration in the face of looming tragedy, an optimism when the wolf is at the door. Robert Gordon finds mystery in the mundane, inspiration in the bleakness, and revels in the individualism that connects these diverse encounters.