Popular culture -- History -- 20th century

When the mystic, occult magician, poet, and founder of the religious philosophy of Thelema, Aleister Crowley died in an obscure boarding house in Hastings, England, on December 5th 1947, at the age of 72, few knew he was to become one of the most enduring pop culture figures of the next hundred y...

The African diaspora - a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade and Western colonialism - has generated a wide array of artistic achievements, from blues and reggae, to the paintings of the pioneering African American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner and video creations of contemporary hip-hop ...

Glamorised, mythologised and demonised - the women of the 1920s prefigured the 1960s in their determination to reinvent the way they lived. 'Flappers' is in part a biography of that restless generation: starting with its first fashionable acts of rebellion just before the Great War, and continuin...

The 1970s brought the Queen's jubilee, entry to the European Common Market and America's withdrawl from Vietnam - it would also witness punk, Chopper bikes and space hoppers. This book looks at some of the key events and personalities of the decade, reliving the highlights in words and pictures.

The 1980s were about big ideas writ large - new money, new style, gender fluidity, gay pride, attritional politics, the 'special relationship', nuclear fear, AIDS, cocaine, ecstasy, tabloid royalty, the rise of urban pop, and ultimately geopolitical chaos. Using a big narrative approach, Dylan Jo...

The 1980s were about big ideas writ large - new money, new style, gender fluidity, gay pride, attritional politics, the 'special relationship', nuclear fear, AIDS, cocaine, ecstasy, tabloid royalty, the rise of urban pop, and ultimately geopolitical chaos. Using a big narrative approach, Dylan Jo...

We all know who 'the girl' is. She holds the hero's hand as he runs through the Pyramids, chasing robots. Or she nags him, or foils him, plays the uptight straight man to his charming loser. She's idealised, degraded, dismissed, objectified and almost always dehumanised. How do we process these i...