Reviews for Power: A Political History of the Twentieth Century - Christine S. Nicholls - Hardcover

The average rating for Power: A Political History of the Twentieth Century - Christine S. Nicholls - Hardcover based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-03-12 00:00:00 Jose Flores As others have noted, the biggest issue with this book is that it was written in 1985 and really hasn't been updated. Furthermore, while the earlier years are given extensive space, everything from about 1970 onward is glossed over fairly fast. There is a massive chapter devoted almost exclusively to analyzing how bluegrass music was featured in the Beverly Hillbillies and a few obscure student films in the sixties but nothing on Old and In The Way or the rise of bluegrass in the Rocky Mountain region. There is a literal year-by-year description of the trends in bluegrass festivals from around 1968-75 but Tony Rice, Sam Bush, and Jerry Douglas elicit about 4-5 sentences total in the whole book and the IBMA is never mentioned. It also bears the frequently stilted and slightly embarrassing marks of being written by an academic folklorist for a University press, though to be fair, it is written in a far more engaging style than that suggests. At the end of the day, I'm left wondering whether the casual bluegrass fan who is looking for a good history of the music would be well-served by this book. Certainly the earliest chapters on the music's origins within the broad scope of "hillbilly music" and the gradual divergent paths that bluegrass and country would follow hold up very well. Furthermore, the early coverage on the festivals is good and if nothing else, the latter chapters glossing over the DC scene and the rise of a number of important indie labels in the seventies is informative. However, there are a number of lengthy sections can be best described as tedious and repetitive, and in many cases serve as a reflection of the concerns of the bluegrass community forty years ago. Given that there doesn't appear to be a serious successor to this book, I suppose it's worth recommending to someone if they are REALLY serious about getting into the weeds of bluegrass's early history with the acknowledgement that it's not always the most interesting or timely book. If anything what it really shows is that the time is probably right for either a new comprehensive history of the genre going up to the present day, or a radical update of this edition that drastically cuts a number of sections while adding some comprehensive info on the last thirty years of the genre's history.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-01-26 00:00:00 Christopher Driver See Alex Orr's review. It was perfect.