Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World |  | Author: Steven D. Stark
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Seller: 1upbooks
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 640229
Media: Paperback
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0060008938
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.421660922
EAN: 9780060008932
ASIN: 0060008938
Publication Date: June 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The Beatles have profoundly touched the lives of millions. But have you ever wondered why? Why did they become the most powerful artists in history and one of the twentieth century's major symbols of cultural transformation? Meet the Beatles answers those questions and more as it examines the ways the lives of John, Paul, George, and Ringo were inextricably tied to the cultural revolutions their music helped inspire. From their long hair and interest in India to their drug use and admiration for strong women, the Beatles changed the way we look, the way we feel, and even the way we think. This is the book for those who have always been infatuated with the Beatles, as well as those who want to learn for the first time what it all really meant.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
 Excellent book, but know what you are getting first March 1, 2009
J. Libertor (Los Angeles)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Author assumes some working knowledge of the Beatles - which I hardly had. But from the preface the author, and subtitle, explicitly state that this is not a comprehensive, or even an abridged, history of the Beatles. Instead this book aims to explain the cultural status at the time of the Beatles and their impact on that culture.
This is my first book on the Beatles that I have read. Since I was born in the late 70's, I was looking for a book that would help explain the cultural context of the Beatles. The book delivers on this point.
The writing style was engaging, and the book was pleasant to read. I reccomend it.
 An Unique Overview Of The Fab Four April 29, 2008
Robyn Lee Markow (Northridge, CA United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Being a Beatles fan,I am wary of how the "lads" are portrayed in books & media. I like a balanced POV of a band that was both a musical & cultural phenomenon and whose music(for the most part) still sounds as fresh and exciting as the day it was recorded. That being said,I think the author did a fairly balanced job of portraying them as talented,intelligent yet without mythologizing them. I especially liked how he showed the unique contributing factors of their native Liverpool & later,Hamburg's) influence on their music & look. They were originals,(the first rock band to work as a collective unit,for example)which we take for granted now and this book reminds of us this fact.(though the author's description of them as "androgynous" is a bit extreme,in my opinion(perhaps "boyish" is a better term)& their effect on the women's movement is an interesting concept,if a bit over-stated. That being said This book is a fast,highly involving read that does make you appreciate the band's contributions to popular music even more.
 Telling us why November 22, 2007
John L Murphy (Los Angeles)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As a child of the 60s, the Beatles' music can be recalled in my mind more easily and indelibly than any other tunes. This both hinders my objectivity as a listener and heightens my pleasure at reading about them. This modest book, a sort of condensation of the detail that can be found within such newer studies as the weighty Bob Spitz biography (also reviewed by me) and Jonathan Gould's 2007 social history "Can't Buy Me Love," (which will be reviewed by me, and which does not mention Stark!), efficiently retells the familiar story. Where, as the author admits right away, it differs remains in the stress given the cultural factors.
Not a professional scholar of the group, and not a hagiographer of the band, Stark writes with less passion than Spitz and less range than Gould. The book does move over the later years too rapidly, and while it lists many sources consulted, the references within the text are less easily cross-referenced. This does ease readibility but may frustrate those wishing for more exactitude. The music, likewise, appears but cursorily covered compared to the social impact. Songs remain understated. You will not find the day-by-day chronicle or the musical cut-by-cut analyses; Stark cautions us early on that other books have done this already. So, any reader needs to understand that this book offers instead an overview, if chronologically ordered, of the wider implications of the Beatles upon their decade. John and Paul gain the most notice; relatively little to Ringo and George has been given. There is very little attention paid to the songs. Artistic trends and packaging of the band and its records receive little direct interpretation. For instance, the discussion of "Revolver" ignores totally its cover art!
But, for a relatively brisk read, Stark does add nuances that pleased me. For instance, reminding us of the power of the limited range of TV and radio, the single-sex enrollment of English schools that encouraged students to imitate in drama the (absent) opposite sex, nostalgia and romanticism as literary forces in Britain, the gender-bending tradition of British humor and fashion, Liverpool's ties to the American South but not the African American diaspora, the ambiance of the art school, or the influence of drugs of various types on the band. The Hamburg years and the fact the Beatles played a thousand gigs before coming to America make clearer their musical and psychological development before 1964.
Also, rarely noticed points to those of us less than totally obsessed, such as that Ed Sullivan did not even learn of the band's fame prior to the show until he had been delayed on a plane due to the band's landing ahead of him causing congestion, make this a worthwhile version of another explanation for the band's prominence. He explains why they made it when Elvis, the Stones, or earlier musicians did not. He emphasizes the group dynamic that changed how audiences regarded collective endeavor in the arts. Most of all, Stark shows why in regard to the counterculture, gender roles, intellectual currents, and their quasi-religious allure, the four young men were able to lead the boomers into a revolution after all-- not the one Yoko might have expected, but one that changed hairstyles, demeanors, LPs, and the process of how artists relate to and are in turn changed by their fans.
Beat the Meetles. March 14, 2007
Johnny Heering (Bethel, CT United States)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is yet another biography of the Beatles. This particular one tells the story of the Beatles while explaining the influences that shaped them, and also the ways that they helped to shape culture, especially the women's movement and the youth movement. The author does a particularly good job in discussing "the boys" childhoods, and how that influenced the men they became. It's true that John and Paul are mentioned much more than George and Ringo, but then again, they were the "leaders" of the group and thus of the most influence to society. Overall, I found the book to be quite interesting.
Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band March 27, 2006
Anne White (dothan, al United States)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
this book is good. It is not excellent, but it is good. It does touch on the background of the fab four and I would say that it is intrresting to read. I have tons and tons of books on the Beatles and I saw them on stage "live" twice back in 1966, the last year that they stopped touring on stage.
I would recomomend this book to anyone who wanted to know their background .
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
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