{"title":"Books by James O'Leary","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780190265212","title":"The Middlebrow Musical","description":"Rattled by two world wars, ongoing discrimination, and economic calamity, a group of critics in 1940s New York sought to promote art that would do nothing less than heal the world. The primary obstacle to this project, they believed, was that American culture had splintered into factions, which in turn divided American audiences: highbrow art, which these writers regarded as obscure and elitist; folk art, which they found provincial and alienating; and popular culture, which they considered merely commercial. Blending these kinds of art, they argued, could draw together a fractured society into mutual understanding (if not necessarily agreement) by situating the most sophisticated ideas within longstanding expressive traditions, accessible to all. Their contemporaries called this culture “middlebrow” and believed that its culmination appeared on Broadway.The Middlebrow Musical straddles the study of popular musical theater and opera, and in so doing charts a new path through modernism. Through detailed archival work, this book uncovers the crucial critical networks that originally theorized a middlebrow approach to culture, beginning in the literary circles of Van Wyck Brooks and Archibald MacLeish, and radiating outward to major theater and music critics including Brooks Atkinson and Olin Downes. Their broad influence on theater becomes clear as this book follows three shows from their earliest conceptions to their opening-night reviews: Richard Rodgers's and Oscar Hammerstein II's Oklahoma!, Duke Ellington's and John Latouche's Beggar's Holiday, and Kurt Weill's, Elmer Rice's, and Langston Hughes's Street Scene. Each chapter features behind-the-scenes communications, which reveal how these Broadway writers explicitly deployed middlebrow theories to negotiate high-art aspirations toward operas, symphonies, and experimental theater; toward contemporary folk-music studies; and toward popular-culture accessibility, all with civic intentions of pulling disparate audiences together into a thoughtful reflection upon the modern, war-torn world.While The Middlebrow Musical focuses on Broadway, it also offers new strategies for understanding the relationship between popular and highbrow culture during the early decades of the twentieth century. Compared to the experiments of high modernism, many of the works featured in this book have struck previous scholars as conservative or cautious. The Middlebrow Musical invites readers to take another look, to consider the forgotten principles that inspired these works, and to recognize them as equally daring and controversial contributions to twentieth-century art.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56225024508277,"sku":"9780190265212","price":25.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780190265212_3b0dc31f-0060-4106-94d6-f43140cf322d.jpg?v=1786011515"},{"product_id":"9781292230580","title":"Pearson REVISE BTEC National Health and Social Care Revision Workbook - for 2026 exams","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eExam Board: Pearson BTEC\u003cbr\u003eAcademic Level: BTEC National\u003cbr\u003eSubject: Health \u0026amp; Social Care\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFirst teaching: September 2016\u003cbr\u003eFirst Exams: Summer 2017\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eThis Revision Workbook delivers hassle-free hands-on practice for the externally assessed units.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cul\u003e  \u003cli\u003eFor all four of the externally assessed Units 1, 2, 3 \u0026amp; 4 \u003c\/li\u003e  \u003cli\u003eBuilds confidence with scaffolded practice questions. \u003c\/li\u003e  \u003cli\u003eUnguided questions that allow students to test their own knowledge and skills in advance of assessment. \u003c\/li\u003e  \u003cli\u003eClear unit-by-unit correspondence between this Workbook and the Revision Guide and ActiveBook.\u003c\/li\u003e \u003c\/ul\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eUpdates to this title\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIf you purchased this title before 3rd April 2017, you will have an older edition. 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In light of updates to the qualification, there may be changes required to this older edition, which will be outlined at www.pearsonfe.co.uk\/BTECchanges.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAn updated edition of this title will release in time for the new academic year in September 2017. This new edition will reflect updates to the qualification that have been made.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIf you have the older edition and would like a copy of the new edition, please contact our customer services team, with proof of purchase, on 0845 313 6666 or email customersolutions@pearson.com\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57483473846645,"sku":"9781292230443","price":14.75,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781292230443.jpg?v=1786178642"},{"product_id":"ungovernable-spaces","title":"Ungovernable Spaces","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhat does it mean to be governed and what does it mean to resist? Examining how communities form amidst social and political turbulence, this open access book presents four case studies that demonstrate the power of organic social formations over imposed order.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnderstanding this formation of community in terms of ‘ungovernability’ and a ‘poetics of resistance’,\u003ci\u003eUngovernable Spaces\u003c\/i\u003e charts a movement from oppression, through transformation, into imagining, and finally emergence. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThroughout the book, the authors engage methods of situated practice and related modes of writing and image-making to consider a range of global case studies: the destruction of the Mecca apartment building in Chicago’s South Side in 1952, following a decade of resistance from the building’s predominantly African American occupants; M.K. 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