Irving Berlin New York Genius James Kaplan
- Price: £16.99
- Pre-order
Share this page:
- Series:
- Jewish Lives
- Format:
- Hardback
- Publication date:
- 14 Jan 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300180480
- Imprint:
- Yale University Press
- Dimensions:
- 424 pages: 210 x 146 x 29mm
- Illustrations:
- 1 b-w illus.
- Sales territories:
- World
Categories:
Irving Berlin (1888–1989) has been called—by George Gershwin, among others—the greatest songwriter of the golden age of the American popular song. “Berlin has no place in American music,” legendary composer Jerome Kern wrote; “he is American music.” In a career that spanned an astonishing nine decades, Berlin wrote some fifteen hundred tunes, including “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “God Bless America,” and “White Christmas.” From ragtime to the rock era, Berlin’s work has endured in the very fiber of American national identity.
Exploring the interplay of Berlin’s life with the life of New York City, noted biographer James Kaplan offers a visceral narrative of Berlin as self‑made man and witty, wily, tough Jewish immigrant. This fast‑paced, musically opinionated biography uncovers Berlin’s unique brilliance as a composer of music and lyrics. Masterfully written and psychologically penetrating, Kaplan’s book underscores Berlin’s continued relevance in American popular culture.
About Jewish Lives:
Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present.
In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award.
More praise for Jewish Lives:
“Excellent.” – New York times
“Exemplary.” – Wall St. Journal
“Distinguished.” – New Yorker
“Superb.” – The Guardian
“Empathic. . . . As long as there are hearts to swell, 'Always' and 'How Deep Is the Ocean' will swell them.”—Eric Grode, New York Times Book Review
“James Kaplan’s Irving Berlin is just like its subject: taut, vibrant, and thrumming with the irresistible words and music of America’s songwriter laureate. It’s by turns a buoyant and poignant trip across the tumultuous 20th century, through the eyes of an artist who helped define its popular taste. Kaplan reclaims the proud Jewish identity of the patriotic immigrant who knew that his country was blessed, because he had been.”—Todd S. Purdum, author of Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution
-
Houdini
Adam Begley£16.99 -
Transmissions
Nick Mauss£25.00 -
Ben Hecht
Adina Hoffman£10.99 -
A Child of the Century
Ben Hecht£16.00 -
Miyazakiworld
Susan Napier£14.99 -
Sophie Whettnall (at) Work
Emiliano Battista£40.00 -
Warner Bros
David Thomson£10.99 -
Groucho Marx
Lee Siegel£10.99 -
Ben Hecht
Adina Hoffman£16.99 -
Henrik Ibsen
Ivo de Figueiredo£30.00 -
Jerome Robbins
Wendy Lesser£16.99 -
Franz Liszt
Oliver Hilmes£14.99 -
Steven Spielberg
Molly Haskell£10.99 -
Barbra Streisand
Neal Gabler£10.99 -
Warner Bros
David Thomson£16.99 -
Allan Kaprow and Claes Oldenburg
Robert E. Haywood£40.00 -
Steven Spielberg
Molly Haskell£16.99 -
The Concrete Body
Elise Archias£55.00 -
The Exile's Song
Sally McKee£25.00
-
Stan Lee
Liel Leibovitz£16.99 -
Houdini
Adam Begley£16.99 -
Moses
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg£10.99 -
Theodor Herzl
Derek Penslar£16.99 -
Ben Hecht
Adina Hoffman£10.99 -
Rav Kook
Yehudah Mirsky£10.99 -
Harvey Milk
Lillian Faderman£10.99 -
Karl Marx
Shlomo Avineri£16.99 -
Alfred Stieglitz
Phyllis Rose£16.99 -
Martin Buber
Paul Mendes-Flohr£16.99 -
Einstein
Steven Gimbel£10.99 -
Jabotinsky
Hillel Halkin£10.99 -
Groucho Marx
Lee Siegel£10.99 -
Warner Bros
David Thomson£10.99 -
Ben Hecht
Adina Hoffman£16.99 -
Jerome Robbins
Wendy Lesser£16.99 -
Menasseh ben Israel
Steven Nadler£16.99 -
Gershom Scholem
David Biale£16.99 -
Harvey Milk
Lillian Faderman£16.99