A wide-ranging collection of essays on millennial American culture that "marshals a vast pop vocabulary with easy wit" ( The New York Times Book Review).From the far left to the far right, on talk radio and the op-ed page, more and more Americans believe that the social fabric is unraveling. Celebrity worship and media frenzy, suicidal cultists and heavily armed secessionists: modern life seems to have become a "pyrotechnic insanitarium," Mark Dery says, b...

The definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense.From The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny and deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in innumerable ways, from the works of Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman to Lemony Snicket. Some even call him the Grandfather of Goth.But who was this man, who lived with over twenty thousand books and six cats, who roo...

The definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense.From The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny and deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in innumerable ways, from the works of Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman to Lemony Snicket. Some even call him the Grandfather of Goth.But who was this man, who lived with over twenty thousand books and six cats, who roome...

Downton Abbey has brought out the Anglophile in American fans of the hit TV series. But Anglophilia has a long history in America. Why are some native-born residents of our Shining City Upon a Hill, where All Men Are Created Equal, seduced by the fluting tones of manor-born privilege? At last, Anglophilia explained---in American, thank you.

"Flame Wars," the verbal firefights that take place between disembodied combatants on electronic bulletin boards, remind us that our interaction with the world is increasingly mediated by computers. Bit by digital bit we are being "Borged," as devotees of Star Trek: The Next Generation would have it—transformed into cyborgian hybrids of technology and biology through our ever more frequent interaction with machines, or with one another through technological interfaces.The s...

A collaboration of political activism and participatory culture seeking to upend consumer capitalism, including interviews with The Yes Men, The Guerrilla Girls, among others.Coined in the 1980s, “culture jamming” refers to an array of tactics deployed by activists to critique, subvert, and otherwise “jam” the workings of consumer culture. Ranging from media hoaxes and advertising parodies to flash mobs and street art, these actions seek to interrupt the flow of do...

The proposal of this second volume of Leituras is to address the debate on the global South from other models of constructing reality and to speculate on the potential impact of alternative forms of organization on current times. To this end, it compiles a series of non-Western cosmologies which, while not new, present renewed interest and originality for their reduced visibility. Such forms of organization condense a more integrated kind of involvement of the individual with the collectiv...

The most virulent viruses today are composed of information. In this information-driven age, the easiest way to manipulate the culture is through the media. A hip and caustically humorous McLuhan for the '90s, culture watcher Douglas Rushkoff now offers a fascinating expose of media manipulation in today's age of instant information.

**Winner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for CriticismA New York Times Notable BookFrom Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays**Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Y...

The decision to attend graduate school is easy for future doctors and lawyers: they must have a professional degree to get started. But for young creative workers, aspiring artists, and intellectuals, grad school is an existential fork in the road. An M.F.A. or a humanities Ph.D. can give you time to invest in studying something you love among like-minded intellectuals and qualify you to teach a new generation of students; but it can also uproot you geographically, expose you to backstabbi...

The final installment in this acclaimed series offers astute and controversial discussions on contemporary graphic design from 2001 to 2005. This collection of essays takes stock of the quality and profundity of graphic design writing published in professional and general interest design magazines, as well as on blogs and Internet journals. Prominent contributors include Milton Glaser, Maud Lavin, Ellen Lupton, Victor Margolin, Mr. Keedy, David Jury, Alice Twemlow, Steven Heller, Jessica H...

The National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author delivers a collection of essays that serve as the perfect "antidote to mansplaining" ( The Stranger).In her comic, scathing essay "Men Explain Things to Me," Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing...