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Cool. It was a new word and a new way to be, and in a single generation, it became the supreme compliment of American culture. The Origins of Cool in Postwar America uncovers the hidden history of this concept and its new set of codes that came to define a global attitude and style. As Joel Dinerstein reveals in this dynamic book, cool began as a stylish defiance of racism, a challenge to suppressed sexuality, a philosophy of individual rebellion, and a youthful search for social change. Through eye-opening portraits of iconic figures, Dinerstein illuminates the cultural connections and artistic innovations among Lester Young, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, among others. We eavesdrop on conversations among Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Miles Davis, and on a forgotten debate between Lorraine Hansberry and Norman Mailer over the "white Negro" and black cool. We come to understand how the cool worlds of Beat writers and Method actors emerged from the intersections of film noir, jazz, and existentialism. Out of this mix, Dinerstein sketches nuanced definitions of cool that unite concepts from African-American and Euro-American culture: the stylish stoicism of the ethical rebel loner; the relaxed intensity of the improvising jazz musician; the effortless, physical grace of the Method actor. To be cool is not to be hip and to be hot is definitely not to be cool. This is the first work to trace the history of cool during the Cold War by exploring the intersections of film noir, jazz, existential literature, Method acting, blues, and rock and roll. Dinerstein reveals that they came together to create something completely new—and that something is cool.

Popular culture --- Cool (The English word) --- History --- United States --- Social life and customs --- African-American culture. --- Baby Boomers. --- Cold War. --- Jim Crow. --- The Beats. --- film noir. --- popular culture. --- postwar America. --- rock and roll. --- the 1950s.

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In the critically acclaimed La Fin de la Pauverté, Romain D. Huret identifies a network of experts who were dedicated to the post-World War II battle against poverty in the United States. John Angell's translation of Huret's work brings to light for an English-speaking audience this critical set of intellectuals working in federal government, academic institutions, and think tanks. Their efforts to create a policy bureaucracy to support federal socio-economic action spanned from the last days of the New Deal to the late 1960s when President Richard M. Nixon implemented the Family Assistance Plan. Often toiling in obscurity, this cadre of experts waged their own war not only on poverty but on the American political establishment. Their policy recommendations, as Huret clearly shows, often militated against the unscientific prejudices and electoral calculations that ruled Washington D.C. politics.The Experts' War on Poverty highlights the metrics, research, and economic and social facts these social scientists employed in their work, and thereby reveals the unstable institutional foundation of successive executive efforts to grapple with gross social and economic disparities in the United States. Huret argues that this internal war, coming at a time of great disruption due to the Cold War, undermined and fractured the institutional system officially directed at ending poverty. The official War on Poverty, which arguably reached its peak under President Lyndon B. Johnson, was thus fomented and maintained by a group of experts determined to fight poverty in radical ways that outstripped both the operational capacity of the federal government and the political will of a succession of presidents.

Economic assistance, Domestic --- Poor --- Poverty --- Destitution --- Wealth --- Basic needs --- Begging --- Subsistence economy --- Disadvantaged, Economically --- Economically disadvantaged --- Impoverished people --- Low-income people --- Pauperism --- Poor, The --- Poor people --- Persons --- Social classes --- Anti-poverty programs --- Government economic assistance --- Economic policy --- National service --- Grants-in-aid --- History --- Economic conditions --- E-books --- poverty in postwar america, Welfare state, war on poverty, Lyndon B. Johnson, poverty.

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Where did musical minimalism come from-and what does it mean? In this significant revisionist account of minimalist music, Robert Fink connects repetitive music to the postwar evolution of an American mass consumer society. Abandoning the ingrained formalism of minimalist aesthetics, Repeating Ourselves considers the cultural significance of American repetitive music exemplified by composers such as Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. Fink juxtaposes repetitive minimal music with 1970's disco; assesses it in relation to the selling structure of mass-media advertising campaigns; traces it back to the innovations in hi-fi technology that turned baroque concertos into ambient "easy listening"; and appraises its meditative kinship to the spiritual path of musical mastery offered by Japan's Suzuki Method of Talent Education.

Music --- Minimal music --- Music and society --- Meditative music --- Minimalism (Music) --- Minimalist music --- Music, Minimal --- Repetitive music --- Systematic music --- Social aspects. --- History and criticism. --- advertising campaigns. --- america. --- american music. --- consumer society. --- cultural practices. --- disco. --- easy listening. --- hi fi technology. --- mass consumerism. --- mass media. --- minimal music. --- minimalism. --- minimalist aesthetics. --- music and culture. --- music historians. --- music studies. --- musical minimalism. --- musicians. --- musicology. --- nonfiction. --- philip glass. --- popular music studies. --- postwar america. --- repetitive music. --- revisionist account. --- steve reich. --- terry riley. --- united states. --- History and criticism --- Social aspects

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Los Angeles pulsed with economic vitality and demographic growth in the decades following World War II. This vividly detailed cultural history of L.A. from 1940 to 1970 traces the rise of a new suburban consciousness adopted by a generation of migrants who abandoned older American cities for Southern California's booming urban region. Eric Avila explores expressions of this new "white identity" in popular culture with provocative discussions of Hollywood and film noir, Dodger Stadium, Disneyland, and L.A.'s renowned freeways. These institutions not only mirrored this new culture of suburban whiteness and helped shape it, but also, as Avila argues, reveal the profound relationship between the increasingly fragmented urban landscape of Los Angeles and the rise of a new political outlook that rejected the tenets of New Deal liberalism and anticipated the emergence of the New Right. Avila examines disparate manifestations of popular culture in architecture, art, music, and more to illustrate the unfolding urban dynamics of postwar Los Angeles. He also synthesizes important currents of new research in urban history, cultural studies, and critical race theory, weaving a textured narrative about the interplay of space, cultural representation, and identity amid the westward shift of capital and culture in postwar America.

Popular culture --- Public spaces --- White people --- Suburban life --- Suburban life in popular culture --- Migration, Internal --- African Americans --- City and town life --- History --- Race identity --- Social conditions --- Los Angeles (Calif.) --- Civilization --- Race relations. --- 20th century. --- art and architecture. --- california history. --- california. --- conservative right. --- cultural history. --- cultural representation. --- demographic studies. --- disneyland. --- film noir. --- hollywood. --- liberalism. --- los angeles. --- modern history. --- new deal. --- new right. --- nonfiction. --- popular culture. --- postwar america. --- regional history. --- southern california. --- suburban culture. --- suburban landscape. --- suburbs. --- united states. --- urban landscape. --- us history. --- white flight. --- white identity. --- world war ii. --- wwii. --- Whites

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What, where, and when is jazz? To most of us jazz means small combos, made up mostly of men, performing improvisationally in urban club venues. But jazz has been through many changes in the decades since World War II, emerging in unexpected places and incorporating a wide range of new styles. In this engrossing new book, David Ake expands on the discussion he began in Jazz Cultures, lending his engaging, thoughtful, and stimulating perspective to post-1940's jazz. Ake investigates such issues as improvisational analysis, pedagogy, American exceptionalism, and sense of place in jazz. He uses provocative case studies to illustrate how some of the values ascribed to the postwar jazz culture are reflected in and fundamentally shaped by aspects of sound, location, and time.

Jazz --- Accordion and piano music (Jazz) --- Clarinet and piano music (Jazz) --- Cornet and piano music (Jazz) --- Double bass and piano music (Jazz) --- Jazz duets --- Jazz ensembles --- Jazz music --- Jazz nonets --- Jazz octets --- Jazz quartets --- Jazz quintets --- Jazz septets --- Jazz sextets --- Jazz trios --- Jive (Music) --- Saxophone and piano music (Jazz) --- Vibraphone and piano music (Jazz) --- Wind instrument and piano music (Jazz) --- Xylophone and piano music (Jazz) --- African Americans --- Music --- Third stream (Music) --- Washboard band music --- Social aspects. --- History and criticism. --- History and criticism --- Social aspects --- Coltrane, John --- Davis, Miles Dewey --- Jarrett, Keith --- Metheny, Pat[rick] --- Sex Mob (Jazz band) --- 20th century. --- american exceptionalism. --- artists. --- bebop. --- historical. --- improvisational music. --- jazz age. --- jazz culture. --- jazz historians. --- jazz music. --- jazz musicians. --- jazz scholars. --- jazz scholarship. --- jazz studies. --- jazz styles. --- jazz. --- music and culture. --- music historians. --- music history. --- music movements. --- music pedagogy. --- music venues. --- music. --- musicians. --- musicology. --- nonfiction. --- postwar america. --- retrospective. --- united states. --- urban clubs. --- world war ii. --- wwii.