Andrew Schartmann Livres

What were the culture wars all about? Through the 1980s and 1990s, politics, art, media, schools, and the culture at large were roiled by seemingly unending public battles over gender, race, sexuality, music, and religion. "A War for the Soul of America" is the first full-scale intellectual history of this period, tracing the histories and influences of key figures, institutions, publications, and alliances--from the Moral Majority and the NEA Four to Madonna and William F. Buckley. Hartman argues that these conflicts were not cynical sideshows that obscured larger economic and political revolutions; rather, he sees them as the key ways in which Americans came to terms with changing demographics, communities, and conceptions of American identity. Hartman s balanced and fair-minded assessment of the time before Fox News and Lady Gaga will change the way you look at public controversies of all kinds."

When it was published in 2015, Andrew Hartman’s history of the culture wars was widely praised for its compelling and even-handed account of the way they developed and came to define American politics as the twentieth century drew to its close. Receiving nearly as much attention, however, was Hartman’s declaration that the culture wars were over—and the left had won. In the wake of Trump’s rise, which was driven in large part by aggressive fanning of those culture war flames, Hartman has brought A War for the Soul of America fully up to date, detailing the ways in which Trump’s success, while undeniable, represents the last gasp of culture war politics—and how the reaction he has elicited can show us early signs of the very different politics to come. “As a guide to the late twentieth-century culture wars, Hartman is unrivalled. . . . Incisive portraits of individual players in the culture wars dramas. . . . Reading Hartman sometimes feels like debriefing with friends after a raucous night out, an experience punctuated by laughter, head-scratching, and moments of regret for the excesses involved.”—New Republic

In 1985, Koji Kondos Super Mario Bros. score utterly redefined the video game music genre.§With under 3 minutes of music, Kondo put to rest an era of bleeps and bloops - the sterile products of a lab environment - replacing it with one in which game sounds constituted a legitimate form of artistic expression.§On the 30 year anniversary of the Super Mario Bros game, author Andrew Schartmann brings this brilliant addition to the world of both music and video game studies. First taking us through the various external factors that coalesced into a ripe environment in which Kondo's musical experiments could thrive - for instance, advances in technology, or Nintendo's marketing tactics - Schartmann then delves into the music itself, searching for reasons why our hearts still dance to the primitive 8-bit tunes of a bygone era.

Exploring the innovative compositional techniques developed by NES composers to mask musical repetition, this book presents a theory of harmony and form tailored to NES music analysis. It examines five iconic scores, including Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man 2, while providing insights into the hardware limitations that shaped these compositions. The work highlights the interplay between technology, commercial pressures, and artistic creativity, reflecting the evolution of video game music during the 1980s and 1990s.