Chicago's architecture attracts visitors from around the globe. The fourth edition of the AIA Guide to Chicago is the best portable resource for exploring this most breathtaking and dynamic of cityscapes. The editors offer entries on new destinations like the Riverwalk, the St. Regis Chicago, and The 606 as well as updated descriptions of Willis ......
Punk rock culture in a preeminently average town Synonymous with American mediocrity, Peoria was fertile ground for the boredom- and anger-fueled fury of punk rock. Jonathan Wright and Dawson Barrett explore the do-it-yourself scene built by Peoria punks, performers, and scenesters in the 1980s and 1990s. From fanzines to indie record shops to ......
Indianapolis Auto Racing and the Making of Modern America
How a speedway became a legendary sports site and sparked America’s car culture
The 1909 opening of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway marked a foundational moment in the history of automotive racing. Events at the famed track and others like it also helped launch America’s love affair with cars and an embrace of road ......
Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK
In 1960, University of Illinois professor Leo Koch wrote a public letter condoning premarital sex. He was fired. Four years later, a professor named Revilo Oliver made white supremacist remarks and claimed there was a massive communist conspiracy. He kept his job. Matthew Ehrlich revisits the Koch and Oliver cases to look at free speech, the ......
Inside the Illinois showdown that derailed the Equal Rights Amendment In this gripping account of one of the most consequential political battles of the twentieth century, Mark R. DePue takes readers inside the fight that halted the Equal Rights Amendment. Drawing upon hundreds of hours of original oral history interviews, DePue reconstructs the ......
Inside the Illinois showdown that derailed the Equal Rights Amendment In this gripping account of one of the most consequential political battles of the twentieth century, Mark R. DePue takes readers inside the fight that halted the Equal Rights Amendment. Drawing upon hundreds of hours of original oral history interviews, DePue reconstructs the ......
This second volume in the acclaimed illustrated civic history of Madison, Wisconsin, tells the story of this iconic midwestern city in the middle years of the twentieth century. Like the rest of America in this period, Madison was buffeted by a boom-and-bust economy, hot and cold wars abroad, and social and cultural changes on the homefront. ......
Photographer Jim Newberry documented Chicago and its musicians for more than thirty years, shooting for the artists and labels that put the city's music scene on the map in the '90s, as well as for the Chicago Reader and other publications. Blending an expert eye with a talent for capturing truth beneath the veneer of performance, Newberry ......