To mark the 100th anniversary of Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag, authors Jasen and Jones have written a fascinating history of the ragtime era throughout the United States. Following the craze as it spread from St. Louis through the mid-West & South, to the West & finally to the East Coast & New York, they provide a cultural history of America through its popular culture.

This comprehensive "natural history" of a traditional art form honors more than a hundred contemporary Finnish American rag rug weavers and loom builders, whom the author has met and interviewed during more than two decades of research, mostly in Michigan's western Upper Peninsula. As in the classic Finnish American rag rug, Lockwood weaves a colorful yet subdued, artfully lasting, and deeply symbolic tribute that reclaims remnants of past Michigan Traditional Arts Program productions in a fresh composition that will appeal to rag rug artisans, Finns and Finnish Americans, scholars, and a broad public alike. Janet C. Gilmore, Independent Folklorist & Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison --

In America's Simple Solutions, author Mark Werts tackles education, healthcare, immigration, taxes, gun control, the environment, gender, equality, and many other issues, and offers Americans simple solutions free of partisan bias, based on how these challenges are handled around the world. Having lived, worked, and traveled across Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, Werts has observed how people in other countries have approached the same dilemmas that we face in the United States. "I have come to understand what is practical and works. I have also seen what is impractical and doesn't work. In our global world, why would America pursue an idea that has been proven again and again not to work in other places?" he writes. Werts also reflects on the views of our country's Founding Fathers, and suggests that we have forgotten much of their considerable wisdom. Throughout, Werts emphasizes the importance of expanded freedom, especially for entrepreneurs and business. He also stresses the critical roles played by education and political participation. "A good, solid education for all of our citizens is the ultimate answer to our many challenges . . . and to get the best teachers, we must offer the best salaries," he says. And he laments low voter turnout, urging all eligible Americans not only to vote, but to get involved in local boards and commissions. With freedom, education, and voting as an underlying theme, Werts believes that we are at a monumental juncture, and that the future of our individual freedom is at stake. In reading, America's Simple Solutions will empower people to get involved, and make the choices that will fuel both growth and freedom.

Winner, 2016 Best First Book Prize from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society Finalist, 2016 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature Winner, 2015 Book Prize from the Southern Jewish Historical Society Finalist, 2015 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award from the Association for Jewish Studies Winner, 2014 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies from the Jewish Book Council The majority of Jewish immigrants who made their way to the United States between 1820 and 1924 arrived nearly penniless; yet today their descendants stand out as exceptionally successful. How can we explain their dramatic economic ascent? Have Jews been successful because of cultural factors distinct to them as a group, or because of the particular circumstances that they encountered in America? The Rag Race argues that the Jews who flocked to the United States during the age of mass migration were aided appreciably by their association with a particular corner of the American economy: the rag trade. From humble beginnings, Jews rode the coattails of the clothing trade from the margins of economic life to a position of unusual promise and prominence, shaping both their societal status and the clothing industry as a whole. Comparing the history of Jewish participation within the clothing trade in the United States with that of Jews in the same business in England, The Rag Race demonstrates that differences within the garment industry on either side of the Atlantic contributed to a very real divergence in social and economic outcomes for Jews in each setting.

Continuing the reissue of the classic Phillips Collection of Traditional American Fiddle Tunes - Volume 2, Favorite American Waltzes for Fiddle presents over 110 classic and lesser-known country waltzes from all parts of the United States, some with multiple versions. All the pieces are transcribed from performances of the greatest traditional fiddlers of the past and present including Benny Thomasson, Howdy Forrester, J. T. Perkins, Lloyd Wanzer, Jay Ungar, Vivian Williams, Skip Gorman, Texas Shorty, Kenny Baker, and dozens more. Bowings and chord accompaniment are included. This book will also be of value to students of classical music and Suzuki trained children. Teachers, are you looking for short pieces that will solidify scales yet won't bore your students? Tired of the same old classical etudes? Waltzes are played slowly enough to not be intimidating but also serve as effective and fun exercises for all violin students, not just fiddlers. the arrangements range from easy (single notes, first position) to advanced (double stops and upper positions). and they illustrate America's great tradition of fiddling.

Definitive history traces the genre's growth and diversification from its 19th-century origins through its heyday and modern revival. Discusses 48 major composers and 800 rags. More than 100 photos.

Reveals how the new technologies of mass culture--the phonograph, radio, and film--played a key role in accelerating the diffusion of jazz as a modernist art form across the nation's racial divide. Focuses on four cities--New Orleans, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles--to show how each city produced a distinctive style of jazz.