GC: Great American Bestsellers: The Books That Shaped America, GB & 4 DVDs NEW!!

Description: GC: Great American Bestsellers: The Books That Shaped America, GB & 4 DVDs NEW!! Condition is Like New. Think Brand New minus the shrinkwrap. No faults at all. This will be packed very carefully and shipped US Media Mail with Tracking. We are happy to combine items to save you money on shipping. For example, we can send you three typical DVDs for the price of 1. Just put your selection in your shopping cart and press the Request Total button (top right) and we will get back to you with the lowest combined shipping price. Remember Media Mail starts at $4.67 for the first pound weight (or fraction), but then only 75 cents for each additional pound (or fraction). And visit our sister store on eBay (GutenburgReads) to see the more than 700 interesting items we are selling. About This Course: The Teaching Company, creators of The Great Courses series of university-level lectures, sells this 24 lecture series with a streaming video and a downloadable PDF file of the course guidebook for $239.95. They also NO LONGER offer the course on 4 DVDs and with a printed 125 page illustrated course guidebook for $339.95. However, we have managed to source a rare, like new copy of this course on original, pristine DVDs (all 4 of them) and a brand new printed copy of the Course Guidebook. Of course owning the physical copy of the course materials means you can share the course with your family and friends and, when you no longer need or want the course materials you can sell them (on eBay, for example). And our price for this rare and pristine find? Just $33.95, saving you over $300 for something else. Course Overview: When a work of fiction or nonfiction captures the attention—and wallets—of American readers, it speaks volumes about the nation's cultural climate. Best-selling books have played a critical role in influencing the tastes and purchasing habits of American readers for more than 100 years. Weekly best-seller lists appear in various national newspapers. Nationwide reading clubs help propel books (and authors) into mass popularity. Strategic marketing campaigns help embed the importance of a particular work in the American public's consciousness. But there is more to America's great best-selling books than the sales figures they rake in. American bestsellers also offer us ways to appreciate and understand particular periods of American culture. The 24 lectures of Great American Bestsellers: The Books That Shaped America give you a pointed look at key best-selling works and their places within the greater fabric of American cultural history. Guided by award-winning Professor Peter Conn of the University of Pennsylvania, you explore representative bestsellers at various stages of American history, from the first book published in the English-speaking New World to the blockbuster authors who dominate the 21st-century publishing industry. The result is an expert look at the evolution of American culture—its tastes, its hopes, its dreams—through the unique lens of the books that have captivated its readers at various points in American history. What Bestsellers Reveal about America Throughout America's storied history, thousands of books have claimed the term "bestseller" in one form or another. The 22 works selected for Great American Bestsellers, however, were chosen for the wealth of information they provide about both the concept of American bestsellers and the larger scope of American culture. Every work in this course, from literary masterpieces (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) to enduring self-help books (How to Win Friends and Influence People), has had a crucial and unique impact on American society. Studying these representative works gives you a deeper understanding of how American literature can both mirror the events of its time and interact with—and in many instances impact—them. Professor Conn shows you how the works in this course have performed many functions in American culture: Shedding light on our nation's political history: Thomas Paine's widely read Common Sense helped chart America's course for independence in the months leading up to the Declaration of Independence. Pamphlets like Paine's were the preferred method of political debate in colonial America; they were cheaper to produce than books and lasted longer than posters and newspapers.Intervening on behalf of change: Published in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin is virtually synonymous with efforts to end slavery in America. Harriet Beecher Stowe did not set out to write the "great American novel." Rather, she infused the work with her rage and despair at the ills of slavery. The immediate popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin put a human face on slavery and swayed public opinion in favor of its abolition. Offering keen looks at America's social climate: Sinclair Lewis was part of an unofficial group of 20th-century American writers who revolted against the idea of small-town America as an idealized environment. The popularity of Lewis's satirical Main Street—in which a woman finds herself trapped in a small Minnesotan community—reflects the eagerness of many Americans to deflate the myth of the small town as a utopia. Instigating—and enduring—controversy: Native Son's brutal violence and frank look at American racial tension drew the ire of many readers and critics, including author James Baldwin, who thought the character of Bigger Thomas nothing more than a vehicle for propaganda. Despite the debates the novel created, Native Son is still considered an iconic work of 20th-century American literature. Professor Conn also notes that, despite the level of their literary merit, most of these bestsellers are exceptionally entertaining to read. His lectures unpack the plot, themes, and critical issues of a particular American bestseller. He takes care to inject each lecture with a pointed analysis that proves each work's importance within the larger fabric of American culture—and frequently draws insightful connections between bestsellers from different genres and time periods in American history. Encounter Moments in American Literary History As you travel chronologically through this rich sampling of American bestsellers, you encounter moments in American literary history that speak to the rise and prominence of specific genres. Bestsellers, because of the rich variety of American reading habits, can encompass works that fall into time-tested categories like romances, historical epics, memoirs, war novels, and more. In Great American Bestsellers, you come to understand how many of our nation's best-selling works helped make these genres important parts of the nation's reading life. For example, you discover how Owen Wister's The Virginian, with its evocative depiction of life in the American West, sparked the popularity of the Western—a wholly American literary genre; how The Maltese Falcon brought to the forefront of the American readership the detective story, originated by Edgar Allan Poe in the 19th century; and how the enormous success of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People reflects the important role of self-help literature in establishing and strengthening American values. Professor Conn takes you inside works from the last few decades of American publishing, including Joseph Heller's Catch-22; Maxine Hong Kingston's experimental autobiography, The Woman Warrior; and David McCullough's John Adams. You also spend time exploring the latest stage in the evolution of American bestsellers, in which blockbuster authors work within well-established genres. A Microcosm of American Cultural History An established and respected author, lecturer, and literary consultant, Professor Conn is well versed in placing American literature within its larger social context. Among his many books are The Divided Mind: Ideology and Imagination in America; Literature in America; and Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography, which was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography. Throughout the course, Professor Conn exhibits a thorough and detailed knowledge of the American literary scene that is nothing short of captivating. His placement of a variety of American greatest writers—including Pearl S. Buck, Edith Wharton, Horatio Alger Jr., and John Steinbeck—within their larger historical and cultural contexts gives you new ways to examine their lives, their writing styles, and their best-selling works. Professor Conn continually stresses the way in which all of these bestsellers—even those that aren't magnificent works of literature—have performed a useful role in telling us much about our nation's history. "Popular literature offers at least a part of the answer to the perennial question of American identity," he notes. "All of it has much to teach us." From The Last of the Mohicans, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Good Earth to The Jungle, Gone with the Wind, and the latest blockbuster by John Grisham, Great American Bestsellers is your opportunity to see our nation's best-selling books as more than just popular forms of entertainment that have managed to make their authors lots of money. They are, in fact, stunning microcosms of American cultural history. By the way: Welcome to the new ebay storefront for The Shepherd's Center of Winston-Salem. The store will be operated by experienced ebay sellers who have been selling some of our best donations for several years now through their own storefronts. Now we are using these same experienced sellers to sell to you directly. For the philanthropists out there, the vast majority of the items sold by us (Gutenberg Reads and others), are for the benefit of The Shepherd's Center of Greater Winston-Salem, whose mission is to help house-bound seniors live full and independent lives in their own homes. The center provides transportation to medical appointments and grocery shopping, assistance with minor repairs around the house, and companionship through visits. The citizens of Winston-Salem generously donate books, music, movies, and more to us to help us achieve our mission. And now, you can buy useful items from us directly, and you will be helping the less fortunate in our city.

Price: 33.95 USD

Location: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

End Time: 2024-09-15T15:30:19.000Z

Shipping Cost: 4.67 USD