If so, you’re rather psychologically peculiar.Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. They focus on themselves—their attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations—over their relationships and social roles. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically distinct? What role did these psychological differences play in the industrial revolution and the global expansion of Europe during the last few centuries?In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church. It was these changes that gave rise to the WEIRD psychology that would coevolve with impersonal markets, occupational specialization, and free competition—laying the foundation for the modern world.Provocative and engaging in both its broad scope and its surprising details, The WEIRDest People in the World explores how culture, institutions, and psychology shape one another, and explains what this means for both our most personal sense of who we are as individuals and also the large-scale social, political, and economic forces that drive human history. Include black-and-white illustrations.

    Starting as little more than a talking jukebox, the DJ is now a premier entertainer, producer, businessman, and musician in his own right. Superstar DJs, from Junior Vasquez to Sasha and Digweed, command worship and adoration from millions, flying around the globe to earn tens of thousands of dollars for one night's work. Increasingly, they are replacing live musicians as the central figures of the music industry. In Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, music journalists Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton have written the first comprehensive history of the mysterious and charismatic figure behind the turntables -- part obsessive record collector, part mad scientist, part intuitive psychologist of the party groove. From England's rabid Northern Soul scene to the birth of disco in New York, from the sound systems of Jamaica to the scratch wars of early hip-hop in the Bronx, from Chicago house to Detroit techno to London rave, DJs are responsible for most of the significant changes in music over the past forty years. Drawing on in-depth interviews with DJs, critics, musicians, record executives, and the revelers at some of the century's most legendary parties, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life is nothing less than the life story of dance music.

    Time and time again, Piazza identifies the unlikely, precious connections between recent events, art, letters, and music; through his words, these byways of popular culture provide an unexpected measure of the times.” —Elvis Costello

    Savage brings to life the sensational story of the meteoric rise and rapid implosion of the Pistols through layers of rich detail, exclusive interviews, and rare photographs. This fully revised and updated edition of the book covers the legacy of punk twenty-five years later and provides an account of the Pistols' 1996 reunion as well as a freshly updated discography and a completely new introduction.

    Their smash hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" virtually invented the era's signature pulsating psychedelic music and, during one of the most tumultuous times in American history, came to personify the decade's radical counterculture. In this groundbreaking biography of the band, veteran music writer and historian Jeff Tamarkin produces a portrait of the band like none that has come before it. Having worked closely with Jefferson Airplane for more than a decade, Tamarkin had unprecedented access to the band members, their families, friends, lovers, crew members, fellow musicians, cultural luminaries, even the highest-ranking politicians of the time. More than just a definitive history, Got a Revolution! is a rock legend unto itself. Jann Wenner, editor-in-chief and publisher of Rolling Stone, wrote, "The classic [Jefferson] Airplane lineup were both architects and messengers of a psychedelic age, a liberation of mind and body that profoundly changed American art, politics, and spirituality. It was a renaissance that could only have been born in San Francisco, and the Airplane, more than any other band in town, spread the good news nationwide."

    It begins with the question on everyone's mind: "Are you going to get a haircut in America?" and ends with a reporter tugging Paul McCartney's hair in an attempt to remove his nonexistent wig. This is where The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2 kicks off. Chronicling the years 1964 through the mid-1970s, this latest volume covers one of the most exciting eras of rock history, which saw a massive outpouring of popular and cutting-edge music.Ward weaves together an unputdownable narrative told through colorful anecdotes and shares the behind-the-scenes stories of the megastars, the trailblazers, DJs, record executives, concert promoters, and producers who were at the forefront of this incredible period in music history. From Bob Dylan to Bill Graham, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Byrds, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, and more, everyone's favorite musicians of the era make an appearance in this sweeping history that reveals how the different players, sounds, and trends came together to create the music we all know and love today.

    Musicians of this genre have developed an often impenetrable sound that teeters on the edge of screaming, incomprehensible noise. Extreme metal circulates on the edge of mainstream culture within the confines of an obscure 'scene', in which members explore dangerous themes such as death, war and the occult, sometimes embracing violence, neo-fascism and Satanism. In the first book-length study of extreme metal, Keith Kahn-Harris draws on first-hand research to explore the global extreme metal scene. He shows how the scene is a space in which members creatively explore destructive themes, but also a space in which members experience the everyday pleasures of community and friendship. Including interviews with band members and fans, from countries ranging from the UK and US to Israel and Sweden, Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge demonstrates the power and subtlety of an often surprising and misunderstood musical form.

    From the hoodoo-inspired sounds of Elvis Presley to the Eastern odysseys of George Harrison, from the dark dalliances of Led Zeppelin to the Masonic imagery of today’s hip-hop scene, the occult has long breathed life into rock and hip-hop—and, indeed, esoteric and supernatural traditions are a key ingredient behind the emergence and development of rock and roll.  With vivid storytelling and laser-sharp analysis, writer and critic Peter Bebergal illuminates this web of influences to produce the definitive work on how the occult shaped—and saved—popular music. As Bebergal explains, occult and mystical ideals gave rock and roll its heart and purpose, making rock into more than just backbeat music, but into a cultural revolution of political, spiritual, sexual, and social liberation.Editorial ReviewsReview“A fascinating thesis reflecting the time when everyone seemed to give rock and roll the status of, if not a religion, then certainly that of a spiritual belief system. Peter Bebergal’s Season of the Witch brought it all back. It's an absorbing read deserving an important place in rock literature.”—Michael Moorcock"Rather than turning in either a fanboyish rhapsody or a scholarly dissertation, he treads the line between those approaches. The result is passionate, informed, gripping and at times wonderfully lyrical."—NPR“This sharply written narrative illuminates the centrality of the occult imagination at the heart of rock and roll.”—Library Journal (starred review) “A thoroughly researched, absorbing, entertaining ride for anyone who’s ever played the Beatles’ ‘White Album’ backwards.”—Andrea Shea, WBUR/ NPR“Kudos to Bebergal for taming the wily spirits of rock long enough to capture their essence in this fascinating book. Perhaps more impressive is the book’s comprehensiveness—from Delta blues to beatnik bluster to acid evangelists to metal overlords, Season of the Witch puts the hellfire in highbrow.”—The Contrarian“Skillfully woven...will delight any music fan and music historian in equal measure.”—Spirituality Today (5/5 stars)“Peter Bebergal has written of his own searching, reconciling spiritual aspirations and personal background, in The Faith Between Us and Too Much To Dream. Both are on my bookshelves. Here, in Season Of The Witch, Peter presents an overview of one “alternative influence” at work on some of those intending to change the world. The world they hoped to change was a dangerous mess. Now, half a century later…”—Robert Fripp “This book is a glorious headlong rush into the dark, full of the electricity of the arcane. I loved it.”—Warren Ellis, author of Gun Machine and Transmetropolitan “From grimoires to topographic oceans, from heavy metal to hip-hop, Peter Bebergal tracks the Mysteries through half a century of popular music (and some underground noise as well). At once an overview of rock's mystic rebellions and a handy primer on modern esoterica, Season of the Witch suggests that we may need to round out the trinity of sex, drugs, and rock' n' roll with an additional deity: the occult, another primal portal to a re-enchanted world.”—Erik Davis, author of Led Zeppelin IV and Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica “Told with clear-eyed scholarship and delectable anecdotes, Peter Bebergal's mind-expanding occult history opened my third eye to Rock & Roll's awesome power over human behavior. Rock & Roll will never sound the same to me again, and I'm glad about it.”—Mark Frauenfelder, founder of Boing Boing"Bebergal displays an intelligent understanding of the interaction between religion and culture when he argues that the "occult imagination is the vital force of rock-and-roll culture." "—Publishers Weekly

    Told through the stories of Mexicans who helped make the transformation, the book gives new and gripping behind-the-scenes accounts of major episodes in Mexico's recent politics.Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, led by presidents who ruled like Mesoamerican monarchs, came to be called "the perfect dictatorship." But a 1968 massacre of student protesters by government snipers ignited the desire for democratic change in a generation of Mexicans. Opening Mexico recounts the democratic revolution that unfolded over the following three decades. It portrays clean-vote crusaders, labor organizers, human rights monitors, investigative journalists, Indian guerrillas, and dissident political leaders, such as President Ernesto Zedillo-Mexico's Gorbachev. It traces the rise of Vicente Fox, who toppled the authoritarian system in a peaceful election in July 2000.Opening Mexcio dramatizes how Mexican politics works in smoke-filled rooms, and profiles many leaders of the country's elite. It is the best book to date about the modern history of the United States' southern neighbor-and is a tale rich in implications for the spread of democracy worldwide.

    It left the business of rock stardom to rock stars. But by 1992 alternative rock had spawned a revolution in music and style that transformed youth culture and revived a moribund music industry. Five years later, alternative rock was over, leaving behind a handful of dead heroes, a few dozen masterpieces, and a lot more questions than answers. What, if anything, had the alternative revolution meant? And had it been possible - as so many of its heroes had insisted - for it to be both on MtV and under the radar? Had it used the machinery of corporate rock to destroy corporate rock? In ENtERtAIN US! Craig Schuftan takes you on a journey through the nineties - from Sonic Youth's 'Kool thing' to Radiohead's 'Kid A', NEVERMIND to ODELAY, Madchester to Nu-Metal, Lollapalooza to Woodstock '99 - narrated in the voices of the decade's most important artists. this is the story of alternative rock - the people who made it, the people who loved it, the industry that bought and sold it, and the culture that grew up in its wake - in the last decade of the twentieth century.

    Kraftwerk is a pleasure to read' Jon Savage, New StatesmanThe story of the phenomenon that is Kraftwerk, and how they revolutionised our cultural landscape'We are not artists nor musicians. We are workers.' Ignoring nearly all rock traditions, experimenting in near-total secrecy in their Düsseldorf studio, Kraftwerk fused sound and technology, graphic design and performance, modernist Bauhaus aesthetics and Rhineland industrialisation - even human and machine - to change the course of modern music. This is the story of Kraftwerk the cultural phenomenon, who turned electronic music into avant-garde concept art and created the soundtrack to our digital age.

    Collecting the testimony of more than 260 artists, record producers, designers, and journalists — including John Cale, Debbie Harry, Joe Strummer, Maureen Tucker, Gerard Malanga, Lou Reed, Johnny Rotten, Danny Fields, Legs McNeil, Bob Gruen, David Byrne, Iggy Pop, Tommy Ramone, William S. Burroughs, Terry Southern, Cherry Vanilla, and Malcolm McLaren, former manager and ringleader of the Sex Pistols — Punk brings to life the profound effect punk music had on global popular culture in the words of those who created it. With reverberations in style, fashion, attitude and philosophy, the birth of punk music released the greatest shockwaves in the popular culture since The Beatles. Punk tells the story through the words of the people who were closely tied to the mania and through hundreds of contemporaneous color and black-and-white photographs.

    Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen’s understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own–as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today’s terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.

    Transcending the bounds of memoir or history, Not on Our Watch is nothing short of a field guide to citizen activism. Its practical strategies for effecting grassroots change could easily be adopted to serve other worthy causes. [An introduction by U.S. Senators Barack Obama and Sam Brownback offers a political perspective.]

    Rather than offering a history of contemporary music, Audio Culture traces the genealogy of current musical practices and theoretical concerns, drawing lines of connection between recent musical production and earlier moments of sonic experimentation. It aims to foreground the various rewirings of musical composition and performance that have taken place in the past few decades and to provide a critical and theoretical language for this new audio culture. Via writings by philosophers, cultural theorists, and composers, Audio Culture explores the interconnections among such forms as minimalism, indeterminacy, musique concrète, free improvisation, experimental music, avant-rock, dub reggae, Ambient music, HipHop, and Techno. Instead of focusing on the putative "crossover" between "high art" and "popular culture," Audio Culture takes all of these musics as experimental practices on par with, and linked to, one another. While cultural studies has tended to look at music (primarily popular music) from a sociological perspective, the concern here is philosophical, musical, and historical. Audio Culture includes writing by some of the most important musical thinkers of the past half-century, among them John Cage, Brian Eno, Glenn Gould, Umberto Eco, Ornette Coleman, Jacques Attali, Simon Reynolds, Pauline Oliveros, Paul D. Miller, David Toop, John Zorn, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and many others. The book is divided into nine thematically-organized sections, each with its own introduction. Section headings include topics such as "Modes of Listening," "Minimalisms," and "DJ Culture." In addition, each essay has its own short introduction, helping the reader to place the essay within musical, historical, and conceptual contexts. The book concludes with a glossary, a timeline, and an extensive discography.