Q. What is the most-watched TV format in history, seen by about 100 million people weekly around the world? A. Wheel of Fortune, a game show. Without putdowns or pandering, the author looks at 260 such shows, concluding that culture has triumphed over technology. For despite our capacity to transmit the same content world-wide, McLuhan's global village has not come to pass. Technology has, however, encouraged already-existing "cultural continents" to coalesce. About one-third of the world's game shows have been licensed or adapted from another country, especially from the United States. Conversely, a single program can cross borders unchanged, such as Sabado Gigante, which appeals to Spanish speakers in 18 countries. The first truly global study of TV entertainment, this book includes interviews with producers, contestants, and licensers. With its tables, illustrations and appendices, the text provides details on content and audiences, as well as explanatory overviews.

Over 350 color and black-and-white photographs show the various architectural styles of old New England homes with special attention to the details. A supporting text explains the history and significance of the style. Architectural drawings provide close-up views of fireplaces, doorways, windows, stairs, and cupboards built in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

Colonial, Georgian, Federal, and Victorian homes presented with an informative and readable text and 245 color photos. Various aspects and angles of the buildings are shown, in addition to the beautiful frontal views. Floor plans are given for many of the homes, making this new edition an important book for architects and potential home owners alike.

In the tradition of Rizzoli’s Historic Houses of the Hudson Valley and The Houses of McKim, Mead & White, Great Houses of New England features a stunning array of newly photographed houses that range over four centuries and are distinctive examples of the architecture of the region—from the mid-seventeenth-century New England Colonial Judge Corwin House (Witches House) in Salem, MA., and the eighteenth-century Jeremiah Lee Mansion in Marblehead, MA., to the late-nineteenth-century McKim, Mead & White Shingle-Style Isaac Bell House in Newport, R.I. With lavish photography of sumptuously appointed interiors including many rarely seen rooms, wonderfully detailed house exteriors and gardens, and authoritative text by architectural historian Roderic H. Blackburn, Great Houses of New England comprehensively considers the magnificent building styles of the region—including Early New England Colonial, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Shingle Style, Colonial Revival, and Tudor. Great Houses of New England is a landmark work of enduring interest to homeowners, architects, architecture historians, and all those who love fine architecture and interiors.

There is something about antique homes and their hard-working barns that captures the imagination. Maybe it's their pleasing proportions, maybe they remind us of a simpler time, or maybe we sense that these venerable old survivors that were built when our country was young have seen it all. But how many of us have bothered to listen to the stories they tell or tried to understand what makes them tick? This book reveals the essence of antique New England homes and barns--their history, the people who built them, why they were built that way, and how to restore them, piece by piece, without losing their character. Learn to identify architectural styles from different periods, how to strategize a restoration, and how to approach it systematically, from the timber frame to the floors, walls, and ceilings, windows and doors, wiring, finishes, and landscaping.