Death Across Oceans: Archaeology of Coffins and Vaults in Britain, America, and Australia brings together the leading researchers in historic mortuary practice from Britain, North America, and Australia. It is the first book dedicated to the material culture associated with burial in the historic, English-speaking world. It combines reflections and evaluations from the pioneer scholars who initiated research in this field during the 1980s with studies by young scholars now pushing the research into a new and wider range of issues. This volume will be the seminal work in this field for some time, providing key analyses and essential bibliographic routes into site-specific literature, and setting the research agenda for the future.

In the first biography of U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack, author Garrison Nelson uncovers previously forgotten FBI files, birth and death records, and correspondence long thought lost or buried. For such an influential figure, McCormack tried to dismiss the past, almost erasing his legacy from the public's mind. John William McCormack: A Political Biography sheds light on the behind-the-curtain machinations of American politics and the origins of the modern-day Democratic party, facilitated through McCormack's triumphs. McCormack overcame desperate poverty and family tragedy in the Irish ghetto of South Boston to hold the second-most powerful position in the nation. By reinventing his family history to elude Irish Boston's powerful political gatekeepers, McCormack embarked on a 1928 - 1971 House career and from 1939-71, the longest house leadership career. Working with every president from Coolidge to Nixon, McCormack's social welfare agenda, which included Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, immigration reform, and civil rights legislation helped commit the nation to the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens. By helping create the Austin-Boston Connection, McCormack reshaped the Democratic Party from a regional southern white Protestant party to one that embraced urban religiously and racially diverse ethnics. A man free of prejudice, John McCormack was the Boston Brahmin's favorite Irishman, the South's favorite northerner, and known in Boston as "Rabbi John," the Jews' favorite Catholic.

In Recording History, Peter Martlanduses a range of archival sources to trace the genesis and early development of the British record industry from1888 to 1931. A work of economic and cultural history that draws on a vast range of quantitative data, itsurveys the commercial and business activities of the British record industry like no other work of recording history has before. Martland’s study charts the successes and failures of this industry and its impact on domestic entertainment. Showcasing its many colorful pioneers from both sides of the Atlantic, Recording History is first and foremost an account of The Gramophone Company Ltd, a precursor to today’s recording giant EMI, and then the most important British record company active from the late 19th century until the end of the second decade of the twentieth century. Martland’s history spans the years from the original inventors through industrial and market formation and final take-off—including the riveting battle in recording formats. Special attention is given to the impact of the First World War and the that followed in its wake. Scholars of recording history will find in Martland’s study the story of the development of the recording studio, of the artists who made the first records (from which some like Italian opera tenor Enrico Caruso earned a fortune), and the change records wrought in the relationship between performer and audience, transforming the reception and appreciation of musical culture. Filling a much-needed gap in scholarship, Recording History documents the beginnings of the end of the contemporary international record industry.