Blue jeans are globally beloved and quintessentially American. They symbolize everything from the Old West to the hippie counter-culture; everyone from car mechanics to high-fashion models wears jeans. And no name is more associated with blue jeans than Levi Strauss & Co., the creator of this classic American garment. As a young man Levi Strauss left his home in Germany and immigrated to America. He made his way to San Francisco and by 1853 had started his company. Soon he was a leading businessman in a growing commercial city that was beginning to influence the rest of the nation. Family-centered and deeply rooted in his Jewish faith, Strauss was the hub of a wheel whose spokes reached into nearly every aspect of American culture: business, philanthropy, politics, immigration, transportation, education, and fashion. But despite creating an American icon, Levi Strauss is a mystery. Little is known about the man, and the widely circulated "facts" about his life are steeped in mythology. In this first full-length biography, Lynn Downey sets the record straight about this brilliant businessman. Strauss's life was the classic American success story, filled with lessons about craft and integrity, leadership and innovation.

When Bavarian immigrant Levi Strauss opened his wholesale dry goods warehouse on the San Francisco waterfront in 1853, he likely had no inkling that his business would become one of the world's largest clothing companies. Levi Strauss & Co. started with imported clothing, bedding, and notions to supply the many small stores serving the Gold Rush and the expanding American West. By 1873, he and partner Jacob Davis invented the very first blue jeans, which were soon worn by working men from Los Angeles to Laramie. Strauss parlayed his business acumen into social progress by giving back to his community and embedding a company culture committed to positively impacting society. In this spirit, the Levi Strauss Foundation was created after World War II, formalizing the philanthropic work started by Strauss himself a century earlier. All the while, the company has evolved with successive generations of family owners, expanding product lines to meet the ever-changing needs of consumers around the world.

Reports from America's political crisis, exposing a new “iconopolitics,” in which words and images lose their connection to reality. The political crisis that sneaked up on America—the rise of Trump and Trumpism—has revealed the rot at the core of American exceptionalism. Recent changes in the way words and images are produced and received have made the current surreality possible; communication through social media, by design, maximizes attention and minimizes scrutiny. In Co-Illusion, the noted writer on art, photography, and politics David Levi Strauss bears witness to the new “iconopolitics” in which words and images lose their connection to reality. The collusion that fueled Trump's rise was the secret agreement of voters and media consumers—their “co-illusion”—to set aside the social contract. Strauss offers dispatches from the epicenter of our constitutional earthquake, writing first from the 2016 Democratic and Republican conventions and then from the campaign. After the election, he switches gears, writing in the voices of the regime and of those complicit in its actions—from the thoughts of the President himself (“I am not a mistake. I am not a fluke, or a bug in the system. I am the System”) to the reflections of a nameless billionaire tech CEO whose initials may or may not be M. Z. Finally, Strauss shows us how we might repair the damage to the public imaginary after Trump exits the scene. Photographs by celebrated documentary photographers Susan Meiselas and Peter van Agtmael accompany the texts.

How did an immigrant who sold sewing supplies in New York City reinvent himself in the American West by creating the most iconic pair of pants in the world? Find out in this addition to the Who HQ library! As a young working-class German immigrant, Levi Strauss left his family's dry goods business in New York City to journey out west for the California Gold Rush. Only Levi wasn't looking for gold -- he wanted to provide the miners with sturdy clothes to wear while they worked in the dusty river beds. His solution? Blue jeans -- pants made of strong denim fabric -- which have become one of the most beloved and fashionable clothing items in the world. Who Was Levi Strauss? follows the remarkable journey of this American businessman, and takes a look at how one man and a pair of pants changed fashion and the world forever.

Levi's jeans are the consummate American icon. For nearly 150 years, Levi's "RM" jeans have been woven into the very fabric of American history and culture. America's love affair with jeans is movingly documented, and the wonderfully original Levi's advertising campaigns brilliantly reproduced. From the gold fields of California to the oil fields of Oklahoma, from wheat fields of Kansas to cattle drives in Texas -- from Woodstock to Haight Ashbury to Rodeo Drive -- Levi's "RM" jeans is the way to go. Forward: R. Martin, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A limited edition book celebrating the best 501 jean interpretations from 2013.