The 27s: The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll, written by Eric Segalstad, illustrated by Josh Hunter (North Atlantic Books, 2009)

Amazon | publisher’s page

From North Atlantic Books:

Excess and tragedy are the stuff of music legend, but it is only with hindsight that deeper patterns emerge. None of these is more striking than the deaths at age 27 of some of the greatest musicians of our time.

Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison. Brian Jones. Kurt Cobain. Founding bluesman Robert Johnson. All died at 27. Their stories, as well as those of ill-fated members of the Grateful Dead, The Stooges, Badfinger, Big Star, Minutemen, Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Mars Volta, are here presented for the first time as a profound and interlocking web that reaches beyond coincidence to the roots of artistic causality and fate.

The 27s is the first comprehensive account of the lives and legacies of the thirty-four musicians who make up (to date) rock’s most notorious myth. It is also a capsule history of rock & roll, twisting and turning through decades and genres, unfurling layers of numerology, philosophy, and astrology along the way. The text is complemented by compelling and multifaceted artwork that brings a nonlinear graphic-novel edge to this major contribution to the study of rock culture.

Peace: A World History by Antony Adolf (Polity Books, 2009)

From the publisher:

How peace has been made and maintained, experienced and imagined is not only a matter of historical interest, but also of pressing concern. Peace: A World History is the first study to explore the full spectrum of peace and peacemaking from prehistoric to contemporary times in a single volume aimed at improving their prospects.

By focusing on key periods, events, people, ideas and texts, Antony Adolf shows how the inspiring possibilities and pragmatic limits of peace and peacemaking were shaped by their cultural contexts and, in turn, shaped local and global histories. Diplomatic, pacifist, legal, transformative non-violent and anti-war movements are just a few prominent examples.

Proposed and performed in socio-economic, political, religious, philosophical and other ways, Adolf’s presentation of the diversity of peace and peacemaking challenges the notions that peace is solely the absence of war, that this negation is the only task of peacemakers, and that history is exclusively written by military victors. “Without the victories of peacemakers and the resourcefulness of the peaceful,” he contends, “there would be no history to write.”

A Universal History of the Destruction of Books: From Ancient Sumer to Modern-day Iraq by Fernando Baez (Atlas & Co., 2008)

From the publisher:

See also: Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries throughout History by Lucien X. Polastron| Lost Libraries: The Destruction of Great Book Collections Since Antiquity, edited by James Raven [review]

Humbug by Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, Will Elder, Al Jaffee, & Arnold Roth (Fantagraphics, 2009)

Amazon | publisher’s page

Fantagraphics has posted the entire first issue of Humbug as a PDF.

From the publisher:

Harvey Kurtzman changed the face of American humor when he created the legendary MAD comic. As editor and chief writer from its inception in 1952, through its transformation into a slick magazine, and until he left MAD in 1956, he influenced an entire generation of cartoonists, comedians, and filmmakers. In 1962, he co-created the long-running Little Annie Fanny with his long-time artistic partner Will Elder for Playboy, which he continued to produce until his virtual retirement in 1988.

Between MAD and Annie Fanny, Kurtzman’s biographical summaries will note that he created and edited three other magazines, Trump, Humbug, and Help!, but, whereas his MAD and Annie Fanny are readily available in reprint form, his major satirical work in the interim period is virtually unknown. Humbug, which had poor distribution, may be the least known, but to those who treasure the rare original copies, it equals or even exceeds MAD in displaying Kurtzman’s creative genius.

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Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power by Mark Shapiro (Chelsea Green, 2008)

At Google Book Search | excerpt at PBS | publisher’s page

From the publisher:

Thanks to the successful lobbying efforts of the U.S. chemical industry, Americans are being exposed to an array of environmental and health hazards—including rising rates of infertility, endocrine system disruptions, neurological disorders, and cancer—from which many others around the world are being protected.

In Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power, award-winning investigative journalist Mark Schapiro reveals how products on American shelves are increasingly being linked with serious health hazards—hazards, like Bisphenol A (BPA) and plastic softening phthalates, that the European Union is leading the rest of the world in legislating out of existence.

Schapiro takes the reader inside the global power shift that has gone almost wholly unreported in the United States, exposing not only the health and environmental consequences of this shift, but its implications for the American economy. He demonstrates how the environmental progress underway in Europe is prompting innovation and enabling their firms to beat American companies in the global competition for markets—markets that are becoming increasingly sensitive to environmental and health concerns.

As the Obama administration considers options for reform, Schapiro also demonstrates that what’s already happening in the world’s largest single market may suggest a route out of America’s long-lasting, and dangerous, status quo.

See also: What’s In This Stuff?: The Hidden Toxins in Everyday Products - and What You Can Do About Them

American Beauty by Michael Hernandez de Luna (Bad Press Books, 2008).

Sample art.

From the publisher:

American Beauty is an artist’s investigation into those Icons of popular culture wading in politics, religion, decadence and sex. This book commemorates and pokes fun at those who have fallen from society’s graces because of lousy judgment and questionable life styles. Prepare yourself for a guided tour of America’s underbelly of misconduct and bad taste through the artworks of Chicago artist and provocateur Michael Hernandez de Luna, who puts it all together for you in the miniature framework of the postage stamp, while using the US postal system as phantom collaborators in the process of creating and certifying his art with the bona-fide markings of the postage cancellation. This book rolls over the many issues of Americana with images hailing the protesting cheer of subversive activism, philately, humor and satire. This book contains colorful biting images of raw and provocative artwork that will surely make you laugh! A little something for everybody!

An Atlas of Radical Cartography, edited by Alexis Bhagat and Lize Mogel (Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press, 2008)

From the book’s website:

An Atlas of Radical Cartography is a collection of 10 maps and 10 essays about social issues from globalization to garbage; surveillance to extraordinary rendition; statelessness to visibility; deportation to migration. The map is inherently political– and the contributions to this book wear their politics on their sleeves.

An Atlas of Radical Cartography provides a critical foundation for an area of work that bridges art/design, cartography/geography, and activism. The maps and essays in this book provoke new understandings of networks and representations of power and its effects on people and places. These new perceptions of the world are the prerequisites of social change.