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History & Criticism eBooks

If you like History & Criticism eBooks, then you'll love these top picks.
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  • Why Bob Dylan Matters, Revised Edition

    “The coolest class on campus” – The New York TimesWhen the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan in 2016, a debate raged. Some celebrated, while many others questioned the choice. How could the world’s most prestigious book prize be awarded to a famously cantankerous singer-songwriter who wouldn’t even deign to attend the medal ceremony?In Why Bob Dylan Matters, Harvard Professor ... Read more

    $12.99 USD $10.99 USD

  • The Road to Woodstock

    by Michael Lang ...
    The definitive account of the most famous music festival of all time: Woodstock.“[A] vivid and lively account of those hectic and historic three days….The best fly-on-the-wall account, tantamount to having had a backstage pass to an iconic event.”—New York PostThe Woodstock music festival of 1969 is an American cultural touchstone, and no book captures the sights, sounds, and behind-the-scenes ... Read more

    $11.99 USD

  • Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music

    by Ted Gioia ...
    “The essential history of this distinctly American genre.”—Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionIn this “expertly researched, elegantly written, dispassionate yet thoughtful history” (Gary Giddins), award-winning author Ted Gioia gives us “the rare combination of a tome that is both deeply informative and enjoyable to read” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). From the field hollers of nineteenth-century ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • The Romantic Revolution

    A History

    by Tim Blanning ...
    Series Book 34 - Modern Library Chronicles
    “A splendidly pithy and provocative introduction to the culture of Romanticism.”—The Sunday Times“[Tim Blanning is] in a particularly good position to speak of the arrival of Romanticism on the Euorpean scene, and he does so with a verve, a breadth, and an authority that exceed every expectation.”—National ReviewFrom the preeminent historian of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ... Read more

    $3.99 USD

  • Talking to Girls About Duran Duran

    One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut

    by Rob Sheffield ...
    From the bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape and Turn Around Bright Eyes, "a funny, insightful look at the sublime torture of adolescence".—Entertainment WeeklyThe 1980s meant MTV and John Hughes movies, big dreams and bigger shoulder pads, and millions of teen girls who nursed crushes on the members of Duran Duran. As a solitary teenager stranded in the suburbs, Rob Sheffield had a lot to ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • Perfecting Sound Forever

    An Aural History of Recorded Music

    by Greg Milner ...
    In 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers ... Read more

    $12.99 USD

  • Major Labels

    A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres

    by Kelefa Sanneh ...
    **One of Oprah Daily's 20 Favorite Books of 2021 • Selected as one of Pitchfork's Best Music Books of the Year“One of the best books of its kind in decades.” —The Wall Street JournalAn epic achievement and a huge delight, the entire history of popular music over the past fifty years refracted through the big genres that have defined and dominated it: rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance music, ... Read more

    $14.99 USD

  • Nöthin' But a Good Time

    The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion

    **The New York Times BestsellerThe Explosive National Bestseller**"A backstage pass to the wildest and loudest party in rock history—you'll feel like you were right there with us!" —Bret Michaels of PoisonNothin' But a Good Time is the definitive, no-holds-barred oral history of 1980s hard rock and hair metal, told by the musicians and industry insiders who lived it.Hard rock in the 1980s was a ... Read more

    $12.99 USD

  • Back to the Garden

    The Story of Woodstock

    The definitive oral history of the seminal rock concert, Woodstock—three days of peace and music and one of the most defining moments of the 1960s—with original interviews with Roger Daltrey, Joan Baez, David Crosby, Richie Havens, Joe Cocker, and dozens of headliners, organizers, and fans.On Friday, August 15, 1969, a crowd of 400,000—an unprecedented and unexpected number at the time—gathered on ... Read more

    $15.99 USD

  • Everybody Loves Our Town

    An Oral History of Grunge

    by Mark Yarm ...
    Twenty years after the release of Nirvana’s landmark album Nevermind comes Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge, the definitive word on the grunge era, straight from the mouths of those at the center of it all.In 1986, fledgling Seattle label C/Z Records released Deep Six, a compilation featuring a half-dozen local bands: Soundgarden, Green River, Melvins, Malfunkshun, the U-Men and ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • Life and Def

    Sex, Drugs, Money, and God

    Russell Simmons, the original and eternal hip-hop mogul, is one of the most innovative and influential figures in modern American business and culture. When no one outside of inner-city New York had even heard of hip-hop, Simmons saw the seeds of a global force that would change the way people talk, dress, listen to music, and choose the heroes they hang on their walls. Today, he oversees a ... Read more

    $4.99 USD

  • The History of Jazz

    by Ted Gioia ...
    Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic--acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of the music, past and present. Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary ... Read more

    $12.99 USD

  • Hip Hop America

    by Nelson George ...
    From Nelson George, supervising producer and writer of the hit Netflix series, "The Get Down, Hip Hop America is the definitive account of the society-altering collision between black youth culture and the mass media. ... Read more

    $13.99 USD $8.99 USD

  • Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs

    by Dave Barry ...
    The humorist asked his readers to share their least favorite tunes and chronicles the hilarious responses.When funnyman Dave Barry asked readers about their least favorite tunes, he thought he was penning just another installment of his weekly syndicated humor column. But the witty writer was flabbergasted by the response when over 10,000 readers voted. “I have never written a column that got a ... Read more

    $11.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

  • This Is What It Sounds Like: A Legendary Producer Turned Neuroscientist on Finding Yourself Through Music

    **One of the Next Big Idea Club's Favorite Nonfiction BooksA Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2022A legendary record producer–turned–brain scientist explains why you fall in love with music.**This Is What It Sounds Like is a journey into the science and soul of music that reveals the secrets of why your favorite songs move you. But it’s also a story of a musical trailblazer who began as a ... Read more

    $19.99 USD $12.99 USD

  • A Natural History of the Piano

    The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians--from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between

    A beautifully illustrated, totally engrossing celebration of the piano, and the composers and performers who have made it their own.With honed sensitivity and unquestioned expertise, Stuart Isacoff—pianist, critic, teacher, and author of Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization—unfolds the ongoing history and evolution of the piano and all its myriad ... Read more

    $12.99 USD

  • The McCartney Legacy

    Volume 1: 1969 – 73

    In this first of a groundbreaking multivolume set, THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1: 1969-73 captures the life of Paul McCartney in the years immediately following the dissolution of the Beatles, a period in which McCartney recreated himself as both a man and a musician. Informed by hundreds of interviews, extensive ground up research, and thousands of never-before-seen documents THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • Thank You

    A Tribute to Chris Cornell

    Thank You is a tribute to music legend Chris Cornell, written in the words of his international family of fans. Poems, reminiscences, letters, expressions of love and grief, the overwhelming theme is one of gratitude - to the singer, the songwriter, the man.The individual pieces join together to form a unique tapestry demonstrating the profound influence Chris has had on so many lives around the ... Read more

    Free

  • Q

    The Autobiography of Quincy Jones

    by Quincy Jones ...
    Musician, composer, producer, arranger, and pioneering entrepreneur Quincy Jones has lived large and worked for five decades alongside the superstars of music and entertainment -- including Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ray Charles, Will Smith, and dozens of others. Q is his glittering and moving life story, told with the style, passion, and no-holds-barred ... Read more

    $14.99 USD $4.99 USD

  • Altamont

    The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day

    by Joel Selvin ...
    In this breathtaking cultural history filled with exclusive, never-before-revealed details, celebrated rock journalist Joel Selvin tells the definitive story of the Rolling Stones’ infamous Altamont concert, the disastrous historic event that marked the end of the idealistic 1960s.In the annals of rock history, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival on December 6, 1969, has long been seen as the ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • Pitch Perfect (movie tie-in)

    The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory

    by Mickey Rapkin ...
    A musical tale of collegiate a cappella filled of high notes, high drama, and high jinks that inspired the hit films Pitch Perfect and Pitch Perfect 2.Get ready to be pitch slapped.The roots of unaccompanied vocal music stretch all the way back to Gregorian chants of the Middle Ages, and collegiate a cappella is over a century old. But what was once largely an Ivy League phenomenon has, in the ... Read more

    $8.99 USD $7.99 USD

  • The Cello Suites

    J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece

    by Eric Siblin ...
    An award-winning journey through Johann Sebastian Bach’s six cello suites and the brilliant musician who revealed their lasting genius.One fateful evening, journalist and pop-music critic Eric Siblin attended a recital of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suites—an experience that set him on an epic quest to uncover the mysterious history of the entrancing compositions and their miraculous reemergence ... Read more

    $2.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

  • Rip It Up and Start Again

    Postpunk 1978-1984

    A landmark history of post-punk, the basis of the documentary film directed by Nikolaos KatranisRenowned music journalist Simon Reynolds celebrates the futurist spirit of such bands as Joy Division, Gang of Four, Talking Heads, and Devo, which resulted in endless innovations in music, lyrics, performance, and style and continued into the early eighties with the video-savvy synth-pop of groups such ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • Music

    A Subversive History

    by Ted Gioia ...
    "A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched" (Los Angeles Times) global history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions.Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. ... Read more

    $13.99 USD