This is the first book to reconstruct early popular musical theatre as a transnational and highly cosmopolitan entertainment industry.

The remarkable and poignant story of the Comedian Harmonists, an early 1930s German singing group that was forced to disband because three of its members were Jewish. The banning of the group, which enjoyed a level of success in Europe similar to the Beatles in the 1960s, was part of the Nazis' attempt to erase all traces of Jewish life and culture from German society - an early aspect of the Holocaust.

Made in Germany: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of contemporary German popular music. Each essay, written by a leading scholar of German music, covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of pop music in Germany and provides adequate context so readers understand why the figure or genre under discussion is of lasting significance. The book first presents a general description of the history and background of popular music in Germany, followed by essays organized into thematic sections: Historical Spotlights; Globally German; Also "Made in Germany"; Explicitly German; and Reluctantly German.

The musical adventure of a lifetime. The most exciting book on music in years. A book of treasure, a book of discovery, a book to open your ears to new worlds of pleasure. Doing for music what Patricia Schultz—author of the phenomenal 1,000 Places to See Before You Die—does for travel, Tom Moon recommends 1,000 recordings guaranteed to give listeners the joy, the mystery, the revelation, the sheer fun of great music. This is a book both broad and deep, drawing from the diverse worlds of classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues, country, folk, musicals, hip-hop, world, opera, soundtracks, and more. It's arranged alphabetically by artist to create the kind of unexpected juxtapositions that break down genre bias and broaden listeners’ horizons— it makes every listener a seeker, actively pursuing new artists and new sounds, and reconfirming the greatness of the classics. Flanking J. S. Bach and his six entries, for example, are the little-known R&B singer Baby Huey and the '80s Rastafarian hard-core punk band Bad Brains. Farther down the list: The Band, Samuel Barber, Cecelia Bartoli, Count Basie, and Afropop star Waldemer Bastos. Each entry is passionately written, with expert listening notes, fascinating anecdotes, and the occasional perfect quote—"Your collection could be filled with nothing but music from Ray Charles," said Tom Waits, "and you'd have a completely balanced diet." Every entry identifies key tracks, additional works by the artist, and where to go next. And in the back, indexes and playlists for different moods and occasions.

The stylistic remnants of cabaret music from Weimar-era Germany are all around us. During the 20th century, its most prominent American exponents were the Germans Marlene Dietrich and Lotte Lenya, whose careers extended through the 1970s. Because of them (and others), the words and music of such artists as Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, Friedrich Hollaender, and Marcellus Schiffer continue to be heard and exert widespread influence. Major songwriters touched by cabaret include Lennon & McCartney, Bacharach & David, Kander & Ebb, Bob Dylan, Randy Newman, and Patti Smith, among many others. African-American artists, beginning with Louis Armstrong, have been sympathetic interpreters of cabaret music. Modern-day Las Vegas appears to be the fulfillment of a prophecy made in the late 1920s by Weill & Brecht in their Mahagonny stage works. And today, the German Kabarett tradition remains strong with such stars as Ute Lemper and Max Raabe packing international venues.

Critics rarely associate popular film with German cinema, despite the international success of such films as Das Boot (1981), The Never-Ending Story (1984), Run, Lola, Run (1998), and recent German comedies, all representing a rich body of work outside the parameters of high culture. This very success compels the authors of Light Motives to take an unprecedented look at German popular film across the historical spectrum and to challenge the tendency among critics to divvy up German film, like Germans themselves, into the Good and the Bad. Together the essays reexamine popular film production along with larger cultural, historical, and political meanings suggested by the term "popular." Most critical accounts have focused on the golden era of Weimar film and the New German Cinema of the 1960s and 70s leaving much of popular film by the wayside. This volume attributes the division to such sources as Frankfurt School dictates, Goethe Haus film offerings, and state-funded film production during the 1970s, which promoted high-culture art films to broadcast the success of West German democratization. The essays challenge the traditional shape of German film history, while offering in-depth analyses of films that have until now been beyond the pale of critical attention. What emerges is a "Never-Ending Story" of oft-repeated obsessions, overlapping generic forms, omnipresent or subtle nods to Hollywood, and myriad political concerns irreducible to a unified message or aesthetic form-all bearing witness to the vibrancy of German culture.

The sudden fall of the Berlin Wall is one of the defining images of the late twentieth century. The subsequent unification of Germany and the decision to return Berlin to its status as capital has made the constant changes within the city a matter of public interest. It also offered Berlin the opportunity to create a new image for itself, one that can serve as a counterbalance to the politically charged recent history of Berlin as the capital of Nazi Germany and former East Berlin as the capital of the German Democratic Republic. Poised between capitalist Western Europe and the former communist powers in Eastern Europe, Berlin occupies a fascinating geopolitical space. This anthology presents a unique glimpse into the various constituencies that make up Berlin and that impact the city's challenges and promises.

In "Beyond Bergman," film reviewer Brad Koplowitz, best known for his movie maven website, has compiled for the first time reviews of the best independent and foreign films from 1990-2009. "Beyond Bergman" will open your eyes to a new age of contemporary cinema where you can forget Hollywood and discover over 400 great, little known screen gems.

In this accessible, clear, jargon free, and comprehensive text, Projecting the Holocaust into the Present offers an insightful historical perspective on how public conceptions of the Holocaust in film have changed over time.

For decades, scholars have been trying to answer the question: how was colonial Burma perceived in and by the Western world, and how did people in countries like the United Kingdom and United States form their views? This book explores how Western perceptions of Burma were influenced by the popular music of the day. From the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824-6 until Burma regained its independence in 1948, more than 180 musical works with Burma-related themes were written in English-speaking countries, in addition to the many hymns composed in and about Burma by Christian missionaries. Servicemen posted to Burma added to the lexicon with marches and ditties, and after 1913 most movies about Burma had their own distinctive scores. Taking Rudyard Kipling’s 1890 ballad ‘Mandalay’ as a critical turning point, this book surveys all these works with emphasis on popular songs and show tunes, also looking at classical works, ballet scores, hymns, soldiers’ songs, sea shanties, and film soundtracks. It examines how they influenced Western perceptions of Burma, and in turn reflected those views back to Western audiences. The book sheds new light not only on the West’s historical relationship with Burma, and the colonial music scene, but also Burma’s place in the development of popular music and the rise of the global music industry. In doing so, it makes an original contribution to the fields of musicology and Asian Studies.