Tracing developments in toy making and marketing across the evolving landscape of the 20th century, this encyclopedia is a comprehensive reference guide to America's most popular playthings and the culture to which they belong. From the origins of favorite playthings to their associations with events and activities, the study of a nation's toys reveals the hopes, goals, values, and priorities of its people. Toys have influenced the science, art, and religion of the United States, and have contributed to the development of business, politics, and medicine. Toys and American Culture: An Encyclopedia documents America's shifting cultural values as they are embedded within and transmitted by the nation's favorite playthings. Alphabetically arranged entries trace developments in toy making and toy marketing across the evolving landscape of 20th-century America. In addition to discussing the history of America's most influential toys, the book contains specific entries on the individuals, organizations, companies, and publications that gave shape to America's culture of play from 1900 to 2000. Toys from the two decades that frame the 20th century are also included, as bridges to the fascinating past—and the inspiring future—of American toys.

From late 20th-century Studio glass to vintage clothing, this is the perfect shopping companion for bargain-hunters and collectors. Full color.

One of the most thoroughly researched guides to postwar toys features newly expanded categories. The annual price guide helps collectors stay current with access to 94,500 updated values.

A brilliant investigation into the true cost of our bargain economy — and the end of consumerism as we know it Ours is the age of discount: we want more, cheaper, better. But the result is low wages, urban blight, environmental damage, labour abuses, a cookie-cutter model of progress, and now an international economic crisis. With an eye for documentary storytelling and investigative detail, Gordon Laird traces the bargain from its humble dollar-store origins to its place as global juggernaut. From Alberta’s tar sands to China’s factories, from Las Vegas to the Arctic Circle, a single question emerges: how will we survive the bargain?

Selected as an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine, January 2010 The Encyclopedia of Play: A Social History explores the concept of play in history and modern society in the United States and internationally. Its scope encompasses leisure and recreation activities of children as well as adults throughout the ages, from dice games in the Roman empire to video games today. As an academic social history, it includes the perspectives of several curricular disciplines, from sociology to child psychology, from lifestyle history to social epidemiology. This two-volume set will serve as a general, non-technical resource for students in education and human development, health and sports psychology, leisure and recreation studies and kinesiology, history, and other social sciences to understand the importance of play as it has developed globally throughout history and to appreciate the affects of play on child and adult development, particularly on health, creativity, and imagination.

This collection brings together the work of a range of scholars from around the world with different perspectives on one simple question: How can we assess the value of various entertainment products and forms? Entertainment is everywhere. The industries that produce it earn billions of dollars each year and employ hundreds of thousands of people. Its pervasiveness means almost everyone has something to say about entertainment, too, whether it be our opinion on the latest Hollywood blockbuster, a new celebrity couple, or our concerns over its place in the world of politics. And yet, in spite of its significance, entertainment has too-often been dismissed with surprising ease within the academy as a ‘mindless’, ‘lowbrow’ – even ‘dangerous’ – form of culture, and therefore unworthy of serious appraisal (let alone praise). Entertainment Values, challenges this assumption, offering a better understanding of what entertainment is, why we should take it seriously, as well as helping us to appreciate the significant and complex impact it has on our culture.

Toy City is a poignant coming-of-age story of a fourth-grade boy named Yun, depicting the life of a poor family struggling to survive in the years immediately after the Korean War. An autobiographical work, the novel is written entirely from young Yun's point of view. Alternately heart-wrenching and hopeful, this masterpiece of Korean literature is a must for those interested in the impact of war on everyday life and the underclass of 1950s Korean society. This edition is the first English translation of the complete Korean novel.