The Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Popular Culture

Time was, back in the early 1960s, when books on film, fashion, popular music and television were limited to cheap biographies written for the mass market and not much else. The academic presses were still only catering for the highbrow arts and cultures and, whereas many volumes were being produced on Beethoven, Michelangelo and Jane Austen, very little information was available on The Who, Andy Warhol or Kurt Vonnegut. Information could only be gleaned from popular music papers such as The New Musical Express or Melody Maker in the UK or by word of mouth, so that authors such as...