An Anglican clergyman travels through North America paying attention to religion, politics, education, the media, and horticultural matters.

American Popular Music and Its Business in the Digital Age: 1985-2020 by Rick Sanjek is the sequel to his father Russell Sanjek's American Popular Music and Its Business: the First 400 Years. This book offers a detailed and objective history of the popular music industry from the introduction of the compact disc to the shift to streaming, with particular emphasis on the creators, the consumers, and the music business professionals who, in Sanjek's telling, form the three major axes of the industry. Each of the book's three sections--1985-1995, 1996-2006, and 2007-2019--has five chapters covering the same areas and issues. The first chapter in each section outlines the competition between the Big Six music conglomerates, their corporate structures, leadership, finances, and market share. The second chapter traces the synergy between the labels, the retail sector, radio, and the trade magazines whose charts are the pacemaker for the entire industry. Third comes music publishing, licensing, copyright, and legal issues including legislation, litigation, and infringement, followed by a focus on creators and how they earn their money. Each final chapter examines how, how much, and where consumers--who lead in adopting new technology--spend their money. Underlying it all is an insider's perspective on the role that the CD, Napster, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, SoundScan, electronic ticketing, and other innovations had in redefining the business structure and revenue flow of the entire industry. Digital technology also affected the regulations, contracts, and financial transactions that define the complex business of music, as live performance transitioned from clubs, concert halls, and theaters to arenas, amphitheaters, and stadiums. Concurrently, recorded music evolved from analog to digital sound carriers through MP3 downloads and then to on-demand streaming files, ultimately affecting consumers, creators, and the music business infrastructure that connects them. Finally, an epilogue includes the effects of COVID-19 in 2020 on all involved, closing with a glimpse into the digital future with the emergence of TikTok, livestreaming, immersive media, and artificial intelligence.

With over 1.3 million Swedish Americans in residence, it is no surprise that the United States has a wealth of landmarks that pay homage to the Swedish people and culture. Touring Swedish America details the locations, histories, and stories behind more than 1,000 such places, including the charming Holy Trinity Church, built in stone and brick in Wilmington, Delaware; the rustic S. M. Swenson log cabin in Austin, Texas; the water tower in the form of a rosemaled coffee cup in Stanton, Iowa; and actress Ann-Margaret's handprints outside the Mann Chinese Theater in West Hollywood, California. Published in conjunction with the Swedish Council of America, Touring Swedish America is the comprehensive guide to historic towns, homes, and churches erected during the mass Swedish migration beginning in 1840s, as well as the art, architecture, schools, hospitals, businesses, museums, and gardens still in use today. Organized by state and featuring easy-to-use appendixes that outline sites on the National Register of Historic Places, this comprehensive guide with handy regional maps is the perfect tool for all travelers on the hunt for slices of their Swedish past.

Chris Hedges’s profound and unsettling examination of America in crisis is “an exceedingly…provocative book, certain to arouse controversy, but offering a point of view that needs to be heard” (Booklist), about how bitter hopelessness and malaise have resulted in a culture of sadism and hate. America, says Pulitzer Prize­–winning reporter Chris Hedges, is convulsed by an array of pathologies that have arisen out of profound hopelessness, a bitter despair, and a civil society that has ceased to function. The opioid crisis; the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress; the pornification of culture; the rise of magical thinking; the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides are the physical manifestations of a society that is being ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. As our society unravels, we also face global upheaval caused by catastrophic climate change. All these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet. Donald Trump rode this disenchantment to power. In his “forceful and direct” (Publishers Weekly) America: The Farewell Tour, Hedges argues that neither political party, now captured by corporate power, addresses the systemic problem. Until our corporate coup d’état is reversed these diseases will grow and ravage the country. “With sharply observed detail, Hedges writes a requiem for the American dream” (Kirkus Reviews) and seeks to jolt us out of our complacency while there is still time.

In October of 1888, Albert Goodwill Spalding -- baseball star, sporting-goods magnate, promotional genius, serial fabulist -- departed Chicago on a trip that would take him and two baseball teams on a journey clear around the globe. Their mission, closely followed in the American and international press, had two (secret) goals: to fix the game in the American consciousness as the purest expression of the national spirit, and to seed markets for Spalding's products near and far. In the process, these first cultural ambassadors played before kings and queens, visited the Coliseum and the Eiffel Tower, and took pot shots with their baseballs at the great Sphinx in Egypt. This expedition to lands both exotic and familiar is chronicled with dash and wit in Mark Lamster's Spalding's World Tour, a book filled with larger-than-life characters often competing harder for love and money off the baseball diamond than for runs on it. Getting themselves into scrapes and narrowly escaping international incident all around the globe, these innocents abroad gave the world an early peek at the American century just around the corner. For anyone interested in the history of the game -- or the history of brand marketing -- Spalding's World Tour hits the sweet spot.

Since his first book was published in 2012, The Secret Footballer has been able to take the reader behind the scenes of footballers' lives like no other player has been able, or will ever be able, to do. Anonymity has been a potent weapon in revealing the real world of football stars, and five years on, he has now penned the work that all his fellow professionals have been urging him to do from the start, The Secret Footballer: What Goes on Tour. And it isn't going to stay on tour any more... From Marbella and Ibiza to Dubai and Las Vegas, The Secret Footballer lays bare the worst, most embarrassing and most hilarious excesses of these fit and mostly fickle young men whose million-pound salaries, to use his own words, 'open up a host of recreational opportunities'. Fuelled by rampaging desires for sex, drugs, booze and rock'n'roll, these footballers think up ever more extreme ways of splashing the cash, and needless to say, it doesn't always end well...

Competitive gaming, or esports – referring to competitive tournaments of video games among both casual gamers and professional players – began in the early 1970s with small competitions like the one held at Stanford University in October 1972, where some 20 researchers and students attended. By 2022 the estimated revenue of the global esports industry is in excess of $947 million, with over 200 million viewers worldwide. Regardless of views held about competitive gaming, esports have become a modern economic and cultural phenomenon. This book studies the full history of competitive gaming from the 1970s to the 2010s against the background of the arrival of the electronic and computer age. It investigates how competitive gaming has grown into a new form of entertainment, a sport-like competition, a lucrative business and a unique cultural sensation. It also explores the role of competitive gaming in the development of the video game industry, making a distinctive contribution to our knowledge and understanding of the history of video games. A History of Competitive Gaming will appeal to all those interested in the business and culture of gaming, as well as those studying modern technological culture.