Take Video Games and Our Perilous Era Seriously
Marijam Dids’ book on video games and culture, Everything to Play For, is a wake-up call for those ignorant of the titanic importance gaming has in the modern world.
cultural history
Blaxploitation Movies and Music Are the Story of the 1970s
Blaxploitation signaled the moment ghetto culture and the Black vernacular hit the American mainstream, paving the way for rap, hip-hop, disco, and modern sports.
The Fine Art of Bootlegging
Eleanor Patterson’s Bootlegging the Airwaves is a lively study of home-taping in the pre-digital era and the communities this “unpaid labor” created.
For the Love of the Crappy Cassette Tape
The peculiar technology of the lo-fi, crappy cassette tape exemplifies the inherent contradictions of popular music better than any other medium.
The Bunkered Decades: Digging into the Atom Bomb’s Effect on Cold War America
When Americans realized the atom bomb their country created could be turned on them, arts and society alike bunkered down into nightmares of nuclear destruction.
Take a Whiff of ‘Perfume’ and Enter the World of Queer Culture
How did Calvin Klein’s gender-neutral CK One, with its scent like “a vodka tonic with lemon twist”, help inspire gender revolution?Perfume follows the fragrant path into queer culture.
The British ‘Idea of Europe’ Is Still a Mess
Shane Weller’s The Idea of Europe, hampered by an unconscious form of Euroscepticism, suggests that British critics are still not ready to listen to their neighbors.
What Made Mahjong Click with Suburban Americans?
In Annelise Heinz’s cultural history, ‘Mahjong’, the role of games tells more significant stories than simply recording how we use our leisure time.
Ronald Brownstein Celebrates and Elegizes LA’s ’70s-Era Cultural Dominance
Ronald Brownstein’s ode to ’70s Los Angeles is, like so many California stories, less about a sustained moment than a bright and briefly thrilling mirage.
‘Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement’ (excerpt)
Jonathan M. Berman's Anti-vaxxers, argues that anti-vaccination activism is tied closely to how people see themselves as parents and community members. Effective pro-vaccination efforts should emphasize these cultural aspects.
![The American Robot: A Cultural History [By the Book]](https://www.popmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/img-5437.jpg)
The American Robot: A Cultural History [By the Book]
In The American Robot, Dustin A. Abnet explores how robots have not only conceptually connected but literally embodied some of the most critical questions in modern culture, as seen in this excerpt from chapter 5 "Building the Slaves of Tomorrow", courtesy of University of Chicago Press.