Irving Berlin and his family fled anti-Jewish Russia before he went on to become one of America's most popular commercial composers. As a self-taught pianist, Berlin is responsible for many hit songs such as "God Bless America," "White Christmas," as well as the musical Annie Get Your Gun. Author Paul Kaplan traces the path of the man behind the songs through this rags-to-riches story and Berlin's place in the music business in the early twentieth century, including the tragedies that befell him on this journey.

A fascinating exploration of the relationship between American culture and music as defined by musicians, scholars, and critics from around the world. Music has been the cornerstone of popular culture in the United States since the beginning of our nation's history. From early immigrants sharing the sounds of their native lands to contemporary artists performing benefit concerts for social causes, our country's musical expressions reflect where we, as a people, have been, as well as our hope for the future. This four-volume encyclopedia examines music's influence on contemporary American life, tracing historical connections over time. Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between this art form and our society. Entries include singers, composers, lyricists, songs, musical genres, places, instruments, technologies, music in films, music in political realms, and music shows on television.

The Fabulous Fifties were America's "Happy Days." The Eisenhower Years produced amazing contributions to our American culture -- and to other cultures around the world. In so many ways, Americans innovated, and the world imitated -- from Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll to the Salk anti-polio vaccine. America's contributions to the world included motion pictures and the Broadway stage; radio and television; amateur and professional sports; jazz, the "blues," country-and-Western music, traditional ballads and popular songs, and rock 'n' roll; domestic and international business and trade; public and private educational opportunities; and a rich and varied literature. While Americans did not invent all these categories, they nevertheless took each to new heights during the Eisenhower Years, and shared their bounty with the world. The Eisenhower Years, generally speaking, were happier, more stable, more prosperous, more optimistic, and simpler times then the preceding decades of the 1930's and '40's and the increasingly turbulent 1960's and '70's that followed. In fact, America's exuberance in so many areas of the arts and everyday life was omnipresent. As for political and military achievements, President Eisenhower kept us safely out of war, and was wise enough to stay out of the way of America's artists and entrepreneurs. As a result, the Eisenhower Years should forever be remembered as those "Happy Days."

The Canada-Israel Nexus is a comparative political history of two settler nations, their colonial past, their relations with the indigenous peoples on whose territories they created and imposed new states, and their close linkages to former and current imperial powers. The battle for justice in the Middle East involves treachery, terrorism, exile, apostasy, and, yes, conspiracy. It is the stuff of legend, of which Canada, Israel, and their relationship is a crucial part. The conflict of interests and rights between the colonizer and the colonized is central to this narrative, as is the relationship between Jews and the state in history, and how that relationship was transformed by the creation of a Jewish state.The history of Israel-Palestine is like an accelerated version of Canadia’s dispossession of native peoples, though with differing endgames: ethnic cleansing vs. forced assimilation. Canada is Israel’s ‘best friend’ — not just in former Conservative prime minister Harper’s words, or when a youthful Lester Pearson pushed through the plan for a separate Jewish state, leading to Israel’s creation and his own Nobel Peace prize — but in many little known and unexpected ways. On the other hand, Canadians have numbered among the few daring questioners of the Holocaust, for which they have paid dearly. Not least, this book examines the central question of the identity of Jews in Canada: will they be just that, with a primal loyalty to an Israeli homeland, or will they become Jewish Canadians, even anti-Zionist Canadians, melting easily into Canadian popular culture, itself replete with the influence of Jewish east European Yiddishkeit

The obits. It’s the first section many of us turn to when we open the paper, not to see who died, but rather to find out about who lived to discover the interesting lives of people who’ve made a mark. A new annual that collects nearly 300 of the best of The New York Times obituaries from the previous year, The Obits Annual 2012 is a compelling, addictive-as-salted-peanuts “who’s who” of some of the most fascinating people of the twentieth century. Written by top journalists each entry is a jewel, a miniature, nuanced biography filled with the facts we love to read, with the surprise and serendipity of life. There’s David L. Wolper, the producer of Roots—and the story of how he got his start purchasing film footage from Sputnik. The jazz singer, Abbey Lincoln, and her change from glamorous performer—she owned a dress of Marilyn Monroe’s—to civil rights activist (she burned the Monroe dress). Owsley Stanley, the quirky perfecter of LSD, who blamed a heart attack on the fact that his mother made him eat broccoli as a child. Patricia Neal—known by most as a movie star, but her real life, filled with tragedy, adversity, and incredible professional ups and downs, is almost a surreal play of triumph and tragedy. Arranged chronologically, like the obits themselves, it’s a deliciously random walk through the recent past, meeting the philosophers, newsmen, spies, publishers, moguls, soul singers, baseball managers, Nobel Prize winners, models, and others who’ve shaped the world.

February, 1940: After a decade of worldwide depression, World War II had begun in Europe and Asia. With Germany on the march, and Japan at war with China, the global crisis was in a crescendo. America's top songwriter, Irving Berlin, had captured the nation's mood a little more than a year before with his patriotic hymn, "God Bless America." Woody Guthrie was having none of it. Near-starving and penniless, he was traveling from Texas to New York to make a new start. As he eked his way across the country by bus and by thumb, he couldn't avoid Berlin's song. Some people say that it was when he was freezing by the side of the road in a Pennsylvania snowstorm that he conceived of a rebuttal. It would encompass the dark realities of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, and it would begin with the lines: "This land is your land, this land is my land." In This Land That I Love, John Shaw writes the dual biography of these beloved American songs. Examining the lives of their authors, he finds that Guthrie and Berlin had more in common than either could have guessed. Though Guthrie's image was defined by train-hopping, Irving Berlin had also risen from homelessness, having worked his way up from the streets of New York. At the same time, This Land That I Love sheds new light on our patriotic musical heritage, from "Yankee Doodle" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" to Martin Luther King's recitation from "My Country 'Tis of Thee" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963. Delving into the deeper history of war songs, minstrelsy, ragtime, country music, folk music, and African American spirituals, Shaw unearths a rich vein of half-forgotten musical traditions. With the aid of archival research, he uncovers new details about the songs, including a never-before-printed verse for "This Land Is Your Land." The result is a fascinating narrative that refracts and re-envisions America's tumultuous history through the prism of two unforgettable anthems.

Almanac of Famous People is a biographical dictionary and a index to information about famous people.