McFarland and Company, Inc.

It typically takes 20 years of consistent excellence for a baseball player to reach the coveted milestone of 3,000 hits or strikeouts. Some of the great players to accomplish this feat are...

Since its inception in 1992, the Sci-Fi Channel (later rebranded as SYFY) has aired more than 500 network-produced or commissioned films. Campy and prolific, the network churned out one low-budget...

For the first 70 years of television, broadcasters dictated the terms of the viewing experience, deciding not only when but how much of a program an audience could watch. Binge-watching destroyed...

Thousands of Black sailors served with valor during the Civil War. Yet few histories have highlighted their contributions to the Union's impressive naval victories throughout the war, which prompted...

On June 10, 1948, the eyes of the sporting world were focused on a minor league ballpark in Newark, New Jersey--the unlikely venue of a much-anticipated rubber match between the two men at the top of...

This collection of original essays presents new scholarship on nearly three dozen feature-length films, including silent films, animated films, films in black and white, and films in technicolor,...

This is a collection of essays that analyze the presence of ableism in superhero narratives from television shows, films, and comics. Contributors use critical disability studies, media studies,...

Many of the best-known and most popular children's stories of the 20th and early 21st century were written by veterans of World War I and World War II. These include works by such writers as A.A...

In the 1870s, Gus Hornsby spread the game of American football around the world like an evangelist and helped establish it in the U.S. heartland. Hornsby seemed destined for greatness as a...

The sources of Joseph Smith's literary works remain the most enigmatic aspect of Mormon history. Smith's ""translation projects,"" the Book of Mormon, Book of Moses, the Inspired Bible and Book of...

Magic, and especially performance magic, has been a part of crime fiction since its inception: both art forms surged in popularity in Western Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century and...

This work is the first book-length scholarly treatment of Nnedi Okorafor's critically acclaimed fiction. Written for an audience that includes serious fans as well as scholars, it is an introduction...

Slow to rise in the literary world, Octavia Estelle Butler cultivated musings on earth's future, reaching massive critical acclaim in the process. This companion will complement book club discussions...

As Andrzej Sapkowski was fleshing out his character Geralt of Rivia for a writing contest, he did not set out to write a science textbook--or even a work of science fiction. However, the world that...

With the aim of providing anyone interested in baseball scorekeeping everything he or she needs to perform the task, this book contains a thorough and comprehensive manual on keeping a scorecard,...

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a complete guide to over 50 years of superheroes on screen! This expanded and updated edition of the 2004 award-winning encyclopedia covers important developments in...

The 1925 trial of John Scopes in tiny Dayton, Tennessee, remains a defining moment in American history. This ""trial of the century""--a ""media event"" before the term was coined--addressed issues...

As the dominant star in our sky, the Sun has been alternately worshipped as a god and viewed as a threat over the course of human history. Despite significant advances in astronomy, the Sun continues...

Virginity--a major adolescent rite of passage--has been explored in the coming-of-age film genre for many decades. This book examines the evolution of teen movies over the past 40 years, posing...

Some board games--like Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders, Clue, Guess Who, The Game of Life, Monopoly, Operation and Payday--have popularity spanning generations. But over time, updates to games have...

The 1948 World Series gave fans an unusual showdown--neither of the contestants had seen the Fall Classic for a generation. The Cleveland Indians had last won the American League pennant in 1920. The...