November 1891, the heart of Gilded Age Manhattan. Thousands filled the streets surrounding Madison Square, fingers pointing, mouths agape. After countless struggles, Stanford White—the country’s most celebrated architect was about to dedicate America’s tallest tower, the final cap set atop his Madison Square Garden, the country’s grandest new palace of pleasure. Amid a flood of electric light and fireworks, the gilded figure topping the tower was suddenly revealed—an eighteen-foot nude sculpture of Diana, the Roman Virgin Goddess of the Hunt, created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the country’s finest sculptor and White’s dearest pal. The Grandest Madison Square Garden tells the remarkable story behind the construction of the second, 1890, Madison Square Garden and the controversial sculpture that crowned it. Set amid the magnificent achievements of nineteenth-century American art and architecture, the book delves into the fascinating private lives of the era’s most prominent architect and sculptor and the nature of their intimate relationship. Hinman shows how both men pushed the boundaries of America’s parochial aesthetic, ushering in an era of art that embraced European styles with American vitality. Situating the Garden’s seminal place in the history of New York City, as well as the entire country, The Grandest Madison Square Garden brings to life a tale of architecture, art, and spectacle amid the elegant yet scandal-ridden culture of Gotham’s decadent era.

The "deep and impactful" story of the American stadium (Howard Bryant, author of Full Dissidence)—from the first wooden ballparks to today’s glass and steel mega-arenas—revealing how it has made, and remade, American life. Stadiums are monuments to recreation, sports, and pleasure. Yet from the earliest ballparks to the present, stadiums have also functioned as public squares. Politicians have used them to cultivate loyalty to the status quo, while activists and athletes have used them for anti-fascist rallies, Black Power demonstrations, feminist protests, and much more. In this book, historian Frank Guridy recounts the contested history of play, protest, and politics in American stadiums. From the beginning, stadiums were political, as elites turned games into celebrations of war, banned women from the press box, and enforced racial segregation. By the 1920s, they also became important sites of protest as activists increasingly occupied the stadium floor to challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, fascism, and more. Following the rise of the corporatized stadium in the 1990s, this complex history was largely forgotten. But today’s athlete-activists, like Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe, belong to a powerful tradition in which the stadium is as much an arena of protest as a palace of pleasure. Moving between the field, the press box, and the locker room, this book recovers the hidden history of the stadium and its important role in the struggle for justice in America.

When Donald Trump announced his campaign for president in 2015, journalists, historians, and politicians alike attempted to compare his candidacy to that of Governor George Wallace. Like Trump, Wallace, who launched four presidential campaigns between 1964 and 1976, utilized rhetoric based in resentment, nationalism, and anger to sway and eventually captivate voters among America’s white majority. Though separated by almost half a century, the campaigns of both Wallace and Trump broke new grounds for political partisanship and divisiveness. In Fear, Hate, and Victimhood: How George Wallace Wrote the Donald Trump Playbook, author Andrew E. Stoner conducts a deep analysis of the two candidates, their campaigns, and their speeches and activities, as well as their coverage by the media, through the lens of demagogic rhetoric. Though past work on Wallace argues conventional politics overcame the candidate, Stoner makes the case that Wallace may in fact be a prelude to the more successful Trump campaign. Stoner considers how ideas about “in-group” and “out-group” mentalities operate in politics, how anti-establishment views permeate much of the rhetoric in question, and how expressions of victimhood often paradoxically characterize the language of a leader praised for “telling it like it is.” He also examines the role of political spectacle in each candidate’s campaigns, exploring how media struggles to respond to—let alone document—demagogic rhetoric. Ultimately, the author suggests that the Trump presidency can be understood as an actualized version of the Wallace presidency that never was. Though vast differences exist, the demagogic positioning of both men provides a framework to dissect these times—and perhaps a valuable warning about what is possible in our highly digitized information society.

In the wake of the Tour de France’s fallen heroes, the story of one of history’s most legendary cyclists provides a much-needed antidote. In 1907 the world’s most popular athlete was not Cy Young or Ty Cobb. Rather, he was a black bicycle racer named “Major” Taylor. In his day, Taylor became a spiritual and athletic idol. He was the fastest man in America and a champion who prevailed over unspeakable cruelty. The men who aided him were among the most colorful to emerge from the era. When hotel and restaurant operators denied Taylor food and lodgings, forcing him to sleep in horse stables and to race hungry, there was a benevolent racer-turned-trainer named Birdie Munger, who took Taylor under his wing and into his home. Then along came Arthur Zimmerman, an internationally famous bike racer, who gently mentored Taylor when some riders drew the color line and refused to race against him. Taylor’s manager, pugnacious Irishman and famed Broadway producer William Brady, stood up for him when track owners tried barring him from competition. From the Old World came a rakishly handsome, mustachioed sports promoter named Victor Breyer, who lured Taylor overseas for a dramatic, Seabiscuit versus War Admiral–like match race that would be widely remembered a quarter century later. With a foreword by World Champion and three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, this spellbinding saga of fortitude, grace, forgiveness, and a man’s unyielding will to win against the greatest of odds is sure to become a classic that will be enjoyed by everyone. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. In addition to books on popular team sports, we also publish books for a wide variety of athletes and sports enthusiasts, including books on running, cycling, horseback riding, swimming, tennis, martial arts, golf, camping, hiking, aviation, boating, and so much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Vernon and Irene Castle popularized ragtime dancing in the years just before World War I and made dancing a respectable pastime in America. The whisper-thin, elegant Castles were trendsetters in many ways: they traveled with a black orchestra, had an openly lesbian manager, and were animal-rights advocates decades before it became a public issue. Irene was also a fashion innovator, bobbing her hair ten years before the flapper look of the 1920s became popular. From their marriage in 1911 until 1916, the Castles were the most famous and influential dance team in the world. Their dancing schools and nightclubs were packed with society figures and white-collar workers alike. After their peak of white-hot fame, Vernon enlisted in the Royal Canadian Flying Corps, served at the front lines, and was killed in a 1918 airplane crash. Irene became a movie star and appeared in more than a dozen films between 1917 and 1922. The Castles were depicted in the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie Vernon and Irene Castle's Ragtime Revolution (1939), but the film omitted most of the interesting and controversial aspects of their lives. They were more complex than posterity would have it: Vernon was charming but irresponsible, Irene was strong-minded but self-centered, and the couple had filed for divorce before Vernon's death (information that has never before been made public). Vernon and Irene Castle's Ragtime Revolution is the fascinating story of a couple who reinvented dance and its place in twentieth-century culture.

This work brings a fresh perspective to the history of modern prizefighting, a sport which has evolved over several centuries to become one of mankind's most lasting and valued sporting attractions. With his primary focus outside the ropes, the author shows how organizers, publicity agents, and political allies overcame both legal and moral roadblocks to make fisticuffing a lively commercial enterprise. The book begins with the clandestine bare-knuckle fights in eighteenth-century London, and ends with the vibrant, large-scale productions of modern Las Vegas "fight nights." Along the way, he explains many of the myths about antiquarian prizefighters, describes the origins of slave fight folklore, and examines the forces that transformed Las Vegas into the world's leading venue for important fights.

Embodied Nostalgia is a collection of interlocking case studies that focus on how social dance in musical theatre brings forth the dancer on stage as a site of embodied history, cultural memory, and nostalgia, and asks what social dance is doing performatively, dramaturgically, and critically in musical theatre. The case studies in this volume are all Broadway musicals set during the Jazz Age (1910-1950), however, performed and produced after that time, creating a spectrum of nostalgic impulses that are interrogated for social and political resonance and meaning. All reflect the fractures or changes in the social dance when brought to the stage and expose the complexities of the embodied nostalgia – broadly interpreted as the physicalizing of community memories, longings, and historical meaning – the dances carry with them. Particular attention is focused on the Black ownership of the social dances and the subsequent appropriation, cultural theft, and forgotten legacies. By approaching musical theatre through this lens of social dance––always already deeply connected to notions of class and race––and the politics of choreography therein, a unique and necessary method to describing, discussing, and critically evaluating the body in motion in musical theatre is put forth.

The American singer and guitarist Ramblin' Jack Elliott (1931- ) is a seminal figure in the folk music revivals of the United States and Great Britain. Declared an American treasure by former President Bill Clinton, Elliott has traveled and performed for more than 50 years, and his life and career neatly parallel the ascension of folk music's 'renaissance' from the 1940s through the present day. Ramblin' Jack Elliott: The Never-Ending Highway is the first complete biography of this important figure in the history of folk music. Elliott's music and Beat-era sensibility influenced countless artists in the fields of folk, rock, and country and western music, and Hank Reineke provides the full story of Elliott's relationships and influences. Most notably, his associations with Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan are well-documented: Elliott is considered Guthrie's most famous protZgZ and Elliott mentored Dylan in his early career. Reineke also recounts how Elliott's life intersected with Derroll Adams, Jack Kerouac and the Beats, Princess Margaret, James Dean, and scores of others. The book examines the full breadth of Elliott's career, discussing how the rough-edged cowboy singer survived in the music industry and eventually won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Recording and the prestigious National Medal of the Arts. In addition to the biography, Reineke has amassed the first exhaustive and comprehensive discography of albums from the singer's notable back-catalog (1955-2009), including nearly 60 LP and CD issues, many rare and sought-after 78rpm discs, EPs, and 45rpm recordings, as well as a number of contributions to compilations, soundtracks, festival recordings, and guest appearances. This impressive volume is rounded out with a bibliography, an index, and more than 30 photographs, making this a must-have for scholars and fans of American folk music.