Michael Starks – författare

From the very beginning, filmmakers have struggled to free themselves from censorship and manipulation by special-interest groups, and this struggle is clearly evident in the history of drug films. Cocaine Fiends and Reefer Madness is an exhaustive exploration of the history of the depiction of psychoactive drugs in motion pictures from Thomas Edison's Opium Smoker (1894) to Cocaine Cowboys (1978), Included are over 400 silent and 1,000 sound films as well as nearly 500 drug-abuse films, 85 experimental films, and 135 television programs. More than 150 stills, most never before published and many extremely rare, illustrate the text. Arranged chronologically as well as by drug type and often by country, this book shows that, far from being a recent phenomenon, drug films were made in nearly every country and period that produced a significant body of films.Visit Edison's first film studio, reflect on the filmic consequences of Cocteau's opium addiction with Kenneth Anger's early experiences with magic mushrooms, see Charles Laughton smuggling cocaine inside a statute of the Buddha, and watch Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., consuming vast quantities of opium and cocaine in a World War I Sherlock Holmes parody.

Ravenna has eight World Heritages sites--churches, baptisteries, chapels and monuments dating from the fifth and sixth centuries AD which are renowned especially for exquisite mosaics portraying biblical scenes and figures. They were designed, constructed and decorated over decades during the era of the fall of the western Roman empire, against a tide of invasion, regime change, conflict and a destructive Italian civil war. How did Ravenna achieve such architectural and artistic glory in this era? The book recounts the city's unique experience as the capital both of the late western Roman empire and of its successor Gothic kingdoms. It shows the central role played by its bishops as the early Christian Church detached itself from the crumbling imperial government. It brings out the important cultural contribution of the kingdom of Italy headed by Theodoric the Ostrogoth and the strong links between Ravenna and the emerging Byzantine empire of the eastern emperor Justinian.

Between 2008 and 2012 the UK plans to turn off its conventional analogue terrestrial television and switch fully to digital TV. This is part of a trend across all the technologically advanced nations of the world. The city of Berlin led the way in 2003. The Netherlands became the first country to switch fully in 2006. Digital television was launched in the UK in 1998. Its growth has been dramatic and by no means smooth. The decision to switch fully is, at its heart, a political one: governments and regulators manage terrestrial spectrum and are ultimately responsible for switchover policy. Switching off the conventional analogue television signals to which consumers (and voters) have been accustomed for most of their lives poses a tricky political challenge. It cannot be accomplished by government diktat. Switching to Digital Television shows how, for success, public policy needs to work in conjunction with both competitive market forces and with organised broadcasting industry collaboration. Switching to Digital Television is an authoritative study of the policy of digital switchover. It is based primarily on UK experience but includes comparative studies spanning the United States, Japan and the leading countries of western Europe.