Michael Pitts – författare

This penetrating work, the first book-length study of Kate Smith to appear in print, offers a candid look at the life and show business career of one of the most beloved women of our time. Through her work as an entertainer, Kate Smith touched the pulse of the American public. The scope of her influence is chronicled in this book, which includes a biographical study, a discography, a filmography, a song index, lists of her stage and media appearances, sheet music and song books, and an annotated bibliography of works by and about Kate Smith.

Through a comprehensive analysis of popular contemporary science fiction television series, this book underscores the genre's unique potential to both reflect and shape cultural perceptions of masculinity.Each of its essays, written by a host of international contributors, analyse key series ranging from Firefly (2002) to Star Trek: Picard (2020-23). Employing anti-patriarchal and pro-feminist perspectives, they scrutinize the limited diversity among male characters in science fiction television, shedding light on the underrepresentation of non-heteronormative, non-white, and transmasculine characters, while also highlighting notable exceptions such as Altered Carbon (2018-20), Doom Patrol (2019), and The Umbrella Academy (2019).Against the backdrop of current discussions regarding toxic masculinity, this book highlights the ways in which divergent masculinities shape and are shaped by the science fiction genre. In doing so, it argues the significant role played by the genre in ongoing discourse surrounding traditional and alternative forms of masculinity.

Through a comprehensive analysis of popular contemporary science fiction television series, this book underscores the genre's unique potential to both reflect and shape cultural perceptions of masculinity.Each of its essays, written by a host of international contributors, analyse key series ranging from Firefly (2002) to Star Trek: Picard (2020-23). Employing anti-patriarchal and pro-feminist perspectives, they scrutinize the limited diversity among male characters in science fiction television, shedding light on the underrepresentation of non-heteronormative, non-white, and transmasculine characters, while also highlighting notable exceptions such as Altered Carbon (2018-20), Doom Patrol (2019), and The Umbrella Academy (2019).Against the backdrop of current discussions regarding toxic masculinity, this book highlights the ways in which divergent masculinities shape and are shaped by the science fiction genre. In doing so, it argues the significant role played by the genre in ongoing discourse surrounding traditional and alternative forms of masculinity.

Through a comprehensive analysis of popular contemporary science fiction television series, this book underscores the genre's unique potential to both reflect and shape cultural perceptions of masculinity.Each of its essays, written by a host of international contributors, analyse key series ranging from Firefly (2002) to Star Trek: Picard (2020-23). Employing anti-patriarchal and pro-feminist perspectives, they scrutinize the limited diversity among male characters in science fiction television, shedding light on the underrepresentation of non-heteronormative, non-white, and transmasculine characters, while also highlighting notable exceptions such as Altered Carbon (2018-20), Doom Patrol (2019), and The Umbrella Academy (2019).Against the backdrop of current discussions regarding toxic masculinity, this book highlights the ways in which divergent masculinities shape and are shaped by the science fiction genre. In doing so, it argues the significant role played by the genre in ongoing discourse surrounding traditional and alternative forms of masculinity.

In November 1997 English Heritage announced the discovery of a vast prehistoric temple in Somerset. The extraordinary wooden rings at Stanton Drew are the most recent and biggest of a series of remarkable discoveries that have transformed the way archaeologists think of the great monuments in the region, including Avebury and Stonehenge; one of the world's most famous prehistoric monuments, top tourist site and top location for summer solstice celebrations. The results of these discoveries have not been published outside academic journals and no one has considered the wider implications of these finds. Here Mike Pitts, who has worked as an archaeologist at Avebury, and has access to the unpublished English Heritage files, asks what sort of people designed and built these extraordinary neolithic structures - the biggest in Britain until the arrival of medieval cathedrals. Using computer reconstructions he shows what they looked like and asks what they are for. This is the story of the discovery of a lost civilisation that spanned five centuries, a civilisation that now lies mostly beneath the fields of Southern England.

The discovery of the remains of 'Boxgrove Man', a 'Missing Link' hominid half a million years old in chalk pits in Sussex made world headlines in May 1994. This was the most sensational archeological find in the UK since Piltdown Man - only this time it was not a hoax. Continuing excavation by site archeologist Mark Roberts has enabled him and his team to build up a picture of this, the first Englishman, and to open up a unique window on life in Britain before the Ice Age. Because these human remains, the artefacts surrounding them and the remains of the local flora and fauna - including elephants and rhinoceroses of an extinct species - are preserved in an unprecedented way, we now discover how our ancestors hunted, ate, manufactured the implements they needed to survive and interacted; these were neither the opportunist scavengers nor the mindless killers that they have previously been supposed to be. Boxgrove, therefore, represents a revolutionary view of the origins of mankind, and changes our understanding of what it means to be human.

Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Rudy Vallee-these cultural icons whose fame spanned all the important mass media, also played a vital role in the origin and development of the crooning tradition.Crooning represented one of the most important musical styles of the twentieth century, intermingling with jazz and fronting the big band craze of the thirties and forties. Crooners spurred the rise of radio as home staple and the Golden Age of film musicals. When commercial television became a viable commodity, crooners anchored perhaps the first TV programming innovation, the variety show. It took the cataclysmic aesthetic and cultural changes ushered in by rock ''n'' roll in the 1950s to finally bring crooners down from their pedestal.The Rise of the Crooners examines the historical trends and events that led to the emergence of the crooning style. Ian Whitcomb, a successful popular music vocalist himself for almost 40 years, provides a personal perspective on this phenomenon. The lives and careers of six pioneers of the style-Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo, Gene Austin, Rudy Vallee, Johnny Marvin, and Nick Lucas-are covered at length. With the exception of one entry devoted to Crosby-possibly the greatest entertainer of the past century-these biographies (appended by lengthy bibliographies and discographies) are more thorough and up-to-date than any treatment in print about these seminal artists.

Alternative Masculinities in Feminist Speculative Fiction: A New Man traces efforts within American feminist utopias to imagine healthier conceptions of manhood. As this analysis illuminates, feminist works envisioning the improved society and its attending masculinities constitute an overlooked site for mining new masculinities. During the years in which such utopias gained popularity —the early 1970s to the mid-2010s—these novels grew more complex, challenging essentialist conceptions of masculinity and female experience. These texts vary in their focus but share an interest in replacing patriarchal masculinities with an alternative informed by second wave and intersectional feminism. This book analyzes the centrality of alternative masculinities to these ideal societies and the ways feminist writers present new conceptions of manhood pivotal to discussions surrounding the ongoing crisis of American masculinity.