As the United States transitioned from a rural nation to an urbanized, industrial giant between the War of 1812 and the early twentieth century, ordinary people struggled over the question of what it meant to be American. As Brian Roberts shows in Blackface Nation, this struggle is especially evident in popular culture and the interplay between two specific strains of music: middle-class folk and blackface minstrelsy. The Hutchinson Family Singers, the Northeast’s most popular middle-class singing group during the mid-nineteenth century, is perhaps the best example of the first strain of music. The group’s songs expressed an American identity rooted in communal values, with lyrics focusing on abolition, women’s rights, and socialism. Blackface minstrelsy, on the other hand, emerged out of an audience-based coalition of Northern business elites, Southern slaveholders, and young, white, working-class men, for whom blackface expressed an identity rooted in individual self-expression, anti-intellectualism, and white superiority. Its performers embodied the love-crime version of racism, in which vast swaths of the white public adored African Americans who fit blackface stereotypes even as they used those stereotypes to rationalize white supremacy. By the early twentieth century, the blackface version of the American identity had become a part of America’s consumer culture while the Hutchinsons’ songs were increasingly regarded as old-fashioned. Blackface Nation elucidates the central irony in America’s musical history: much of the music that has been interpreted as black, authentic, and expressive was invented, performed, and enjoyed by people who believed strongly in white superiority.  At the same time, the music often depicted as white, repressed, and boringly bourgeois was often socially and racially inclusive, committed to reform, and devoted to challenging the immoralities at the heart of America’s capitalist order.

Blackface Nation: Race, Reform, and Identity in American Popular Music, 1812-1925

Arts & Photography

Roberts, Brian

Music

University of Chicago Press

As the United States transitioned from a rural nation to an urbanized, industrial giant between the War of 1812 and the early twentieth century, ordinary people struggled over the question of what it meant to be American. As Brian Roberts shows in Blackface Nation, this struggle is especially evident in popular culture and the interplay between two specific strains of music: middle-class folk and blackface minstrelsy. The Hutchinson Family Singers, the Northeast’s most popular middle-class singing group during the mid-nineteenth century, is perhaps the best example of the first strain of music. The group’s songs expressed an American identity rooted in communal values, with lyrics focusing on abolition, women’s rights, and socialism. Blackface minstrelsy, on the other hand, emerged out of an audience-based coalition of Northern business elites, Southern slaveholders, and young, white, working-class men, for whom blackface expressed an identity rooted in individual self-expression, anti-intellectualism, and white superiority. Its performers embodied the love-crime version of racism, in which vast swaths of the white public adored African Americans who fit blackface stereotypes even as they used those stereotypes to rationalize white supremacy. By the early twentieth century, the blackface version of the American identity had become a part of America’s consumer culture while the Hutchinsons’ songs were increasingly regarded as old-fashioned. Blackface Nation elucidates the central irony in America’s musical history: much of the music that has been interpreted as black, authentic, and expressive was invented, performed, and enjoyed by people who believed strongly in white superiority. At the same time, the music often depicted as white, repressed, and boringly bourgeois was often socially and racially inclusive, committed to reform, and devoted to challenging the immoralities at the heart of America’s capitalist order.

‘You had yourself often told me,’ Oscar Wilde wrote to Lord Alfred Douglas, ‘how many of your race there had been who had stained their hands in their own blood; your uncle certainly, your grandfather possibly; many others in the mad, bad line from which you come.’ Wilde’s tragic involvement with Lord Alfred Douglas’s family led him to believe anything he was told about the ‘mad, bad line.’ The truth was even stranger than he imagined.  That Lord Alfred’s grandfather, the 7th Marquess of Queensberry, committed suicide is more than a possibility. His eldest son, the 8th Marquess, was that noted eccentric famous for giving his name to the rules of boxing and for his persecution of Oscar Wilde. He had other claims to notoriety. His agnosticism resulted in his expulsion from the House of Lords; he quarrelled violently with all his sons, the eldest of whom was found dead in suspicious circumstances.  His part in the Wilde affair is well-known, but this book throws new light on the trials. It reveals, among other things, that when Lord Queensberry supposedly forced Wilde to prosecute him — by leaving a libellous visiting card — Wilde had already instructed his solicitors to take legal action. It also explores Lord Rosebery’s role in the cause célèbre. There is, in addition, the curious story of the arrest in America, while the Wilde trials were proceeding, of Lord Queensberry’s youngest son.  Nor was the 8th Marquess the only eccentric in the Douglas family. His mother shocked London society by supporting the Fenians; one of his brothers was killed in the first ascent of the Matterhorn; another brother cut his throat in a London hotel. The Marquess’s eldest sister created a scandal by marrying a baker’s boy, twenty years her junior, and his youngest sister, Lady Florence Dixie — author, explorer, ardent feminist and champion of the Zulus — was, in her day, almost as controversial as Marquess himself.  Based on much original research, Brian Roberts’ immensely readable book examines this extraordinary family more fully than  ever before, previous studies of the Queensberrys having been mainly concerned with the various Marquesses’ sporting activities.

The mad bad line: The family of Lord Alfred Douglas

H.Hamilton

Randolph: A Study of Churchill's Son

‘Born to succeed; doomed to failure’. For all its cruel accuracy, this quip about Randolph Churchill is not quite fair.  He was certainly born to succeed. A member of a great patrician family, good-looking, intelligent, energetic, with great oratorical gifts and quickness of mind, the young Randolph Churchill was the Golden Boy of popular imagination and seen as a young man of destiny.  Grandson of the colourful late-Victorian politician Lord Randolph Churchill and son of the even more celebrated and controversial Winston Churchill, Randolph seemed set fair to continue the family tradition. His father even referred to him as 'the younger Pitt'.  What went wrong? This book provides a convincing and fascinating answer. Both circumstances and his own defects of character worked against Randolph Churchill. He was spoiled by his father, his relationship with his strong-willed mother was not happy. Too much privilege sapped his initiative, he could never live up to his father's expectations and had an inability to establish close and loving relationships. His two marriages fell apart, the great love affair of his life was unrequited and, most important of all, he was handicapped by his self-willed, argumentative, bombastic and cantankerous nature.  Passionately interested in politics, he fought and lost six elections; the only time he got into parliament was when he was returned unopposed. Although his wartime experiences – in the Western Desert and with the SAS in Yugoslavia – showed his courage and were probably the high water mark of his achievements, he never covered himself in the glory he so ardently sought. A talented and occasionally brilliant journalist, he did not have much success in his final career as a biographer, dying after publishing only two volumes of what was designed to be a great five-volume life of his famous father.  In this shrewd analysis of Randolph's character, the author shows there was far more to him than just the self-indulgent braggart of popular legend. He was an ambitious, talented, unexpectedly sensitive man; touchingly devoted to his father, surprisingly loved by his friends and, although often offensive, never dull.

Randolph: A study of Churchill's son

History

Europe

Hamish Hamilton Ltd.

Micro social theory covers a rich tradition in sociological thinking and research that focuses on the self or actor and social interaction. This new title in the Traditions in Social Theory series traces the development of the tradition and assesses its contemporary importance.

Micro Social Theory (Traditions in Social Theory, 11)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Red Globe Press

Micro social theory covers a rich tradition in sociological thinking and research that focuses on the self or actor and social interaction. This new title in the Traditions in Social Theory series traces the development of the tradition and assesses its contemporary importance.

Micro Social Theory (Traditions in Social Theory, 9)

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

Biographical Research (Understanding Social Research)

Biographical Research reflects a rapid expansion of interest in the study of lives taking place within the social sciences. Life story, oral history, narrative, autobiography, biography and other approaches are being used more and more to explain how individuals interpret experiences and social relationships. The book examines the methodological and theoretical developments associated with research on lives in sociology, oral history, ethnography, biography, and narrative analysis. The author includes numerous examples of biographical research from his own work and other studies, and addresses important areas such as the collection and interpretation of materials, uses of biographical research, oral and written accounts, the interview relationship, the construction of the story, memory, audience, and the researcher's own biography. In conclusion, it draws out common themes and emerging concerns.

Open University Press

This book considers the methodological and theoretical questions associated with the use of life stories, oral histories, personal narratives, autobiographies, and biographies, as they are incorporated into sociological, ethnographic, and narrative studies. The collection and interpretation of materials, the uses of biographical research, the interview relationship, the construction of the story, memory, and audience are all considered. Roberts teaches sociology at the University of Huddersfield. The book is distributed by Taylor & Francis. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Sociology

Open Univ Pr

This major new text provides an introduction to the interaction of culture and society with the landscape and environment. It offers a broad-based view of this theme by drawing upon the varied traditions of landscape interpretation, from the traditional cultural geography of scholars such as Carl Sauer to the 'new' cultural geography which has emerged in the 1990s. The book comprises three major, interwoven strands. First, fundamental factors such as environmental change and population pressure are addressed in order to sketch the contextual variables of landscapes production. Second, the evolution of the humanised landscape is discussed in terms of processes such as clearing wood, the impact of agriculture, the creation of urban-industrial complexes, and is also treated in historical periods such as the pre-industrial, the modern and the post-modern. From this we can see the cultural and economic signatures of human societies at different times and places. Finally, examples of landscape types are selected in order to illustrate the ways in which landscape both represents and participates in social change. The authors use a wide range of source material, ranging from place-names and pollen diagrams to literature and heritage monuments. Superbly illustrated throughout, it is essential reading for first-year undergraduates studying historical geography, human geography, cultural geography or landscape history.

People, Land and Time: An Historical Introduction to the Relations Between Landscape, Culture and Environment

Atkins, Peter

Simmons, Ian

World

Routledge

Cecil Rhodes: Flawed Colossus

Tells how Rhodes built a fortune in South African diamonds, discusses his efforts to expand the British Empire, and assesses his accomplishments

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Roberts, Brian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Roberts, Brian

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Roberts, Brian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Blackface Nation: Race, Reform, and Identity in American Popular Music, 1812-1925

Blackface Nation: Race, Reform, and Identity in American Popular Music, 1812-1925

The mad bad line: The family of Lord Alfred Douglas

Randolph: A study of Churchill's son

Micro Social Theory (Traditions in Social Theory, 11)

Micro Social Theory (Traditions in Social Theory, 9)

Biographical Research (Understanding Social Research)

Biographical Research (Understanding Social Research)

People, Land and Time: An Historical Introduction to the Relations Between Landscape, Culture and Environment

Cecil Rhodes: Flawed Colossus