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4 books match the query 'Breaks'
Breaks in the Air
The Birth of Rap Radio in New York CityJohn Klaess
Duke University Press, 2022
In Breaks in the Air John Klaess tells the story of rap’s emergence on New York City’s airwaves by examining how artists and broadcasters adapted hip hop’s performance culture to radio. Initially, artists and DJs brought their live practice to radio by buying time on low-bandwidth community stations and building new communities around their shows. Later, stations owned by New York’s African American elite, such as WBLS, reluctantly began airing rap even as they pursued a sound rooted in respectability, urban sophistication, and polish. At the same time, large commercial stations like WRKS programmed rap once it became clear that the music attracted a demographic that was valuable to advertisers. Moving between intimate portraits of single radio shows and broader examinations of the legal, financial, cultural, and political forces that indelibly shaped the sound of rap radio, Klaess shows how early rap radio provides a lens through which to better understand the development of rap music as well as the intertwined histories of sounds, institutions, communities, and legal formations that converged in the post-Civil Rights era.
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Breaks in the Chain
What Immigrant Workers Can Teach America about DemocracyPaul Apostolidis
University of Minnesota Press, 2010
In Breaks in the Chain, Paul Apostolidis investigates the personal life stories of a group of Mexican immigrant meatpackers who are at once typical and extraordinary. After crossing the border clandestinely and navigating the treacherous world of the undocumented, they waged a campaign to democratize their union and their workplace in the most hazardous industry in the United States.
Breaks in the Chain shows how immigrant workers-individually and sometimes collectively-both reinforce and contest a tacit but lethal form of biopolitics that differentiates the life chances of racial groups. Examining their personal narratives, Apostolidis recasts our understanding of the ways immigrants construct and transform social power.
Apostolidis uses empirical inquiry to spark new reflections in critical theory as he analyzes how immigrant workers' local practices confront structural power within and beyond America's borders. Linking stories of immigration to stories about working on the meat production line-the chain-he reveals the surprising power of activism by immigrant workers and their allies and demonstrates how it can-and should-promote social and political democracy in America.
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These Are the Breaks
The Origins of Hip HopEugene Stein
University of Illinois Press, 2027
Standard histories describe hip-hop’s emergence from poverty, urban decay, and the Cross Bronx Expressway’s devastating impact on the South Bronx. Eugene Stein moves beyond the abstractions to provide a neighborhood-by-neighborhood examination of how people’s reactions to socioeconomic shocks shaped a revolutionary form of music.
Stein combines granular detail, oral histories, and analyses from economic geography and Black geographies to reveal the urban environment’s effect on the lives and artistic activities of young people. Himself a Bronx native, Stein grew up in the unpredictable New York City of the 1970s and witnessed a cascade of economic distress, structural racism, city-wide fiscal catastrophe, and the borough’s housing crisis. As he shows, these and other factors primed pioneering rappers, DJs, and other artists to aim at success and outclass rivals by developing new styles. Housing policies and population movements, meanwhile, both tore apart social networks and provided the need and impetus for new and nurturing cultural communities.
Expansive and innovative, These Are the Breaks chronicles how a generation of Black and Latino youth transformed hardship into identity, competition, community, and art.
Stein combines granular detail, oral histories, and analyses from economic geography and Black geographies to reveal the urban environment’s effect on the lives and artistic activities of young people. Himself a Bronx native, Stein grew up in the unpredictable New York City of the 1970s and witnessed a cascade of economic distress, structural racism, city-wide fiscal catastrophe, and the borough’s housing crisis. As he shows, these and other factors primed pioneering rappers, DJs, and other artists to aim at success and outclass rivals by developing new styles. Housing policies and population movements, meanwhile, both tore apart social networks and provided the need and impetus for new and nurturing cultural communities.
Expansive and innovative, These Are the Breaks chronicles how a generation of Black and Latino youth transformed hardship into identity, competition, community, and art.
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What Makes or Breaks a Democracy
Lessons from HungaryAndras Schweitzer
Central European University Press, 2026
Democracy has been in global decline for two decades. Why? Is it because of the emergence of populist leaders? Rising inequalities? The spread of illiberalism? Social media? Identity politics? This book investigates the potential causes while focusing on a peculiar case.
Hungary is unique in that it democratized quickly and thoroughly in 1989–1990, then, after two decades, it turned into an electoral autocracy. A new democratic era could be in the making after the April 2026 election. This book evaluates potential factors involved in these turnarounds by analyzing the post-1989 Hungarian trajectory and comparing it to other countries of the region.
If the dramatic backsliding is connected to social cultural aspects, how could democracy take root after 1989? If constitutional arrangements helped the subsequent autocratization, how was the Hungarian setup different from that in neighboring countries? Did Budapest mismanage the economy? Is Viktor Orbán unique? The findings in this book lead to universal lessons on how to build and protect democracy.
Hungary is unique in that it democratized quickly and thoroughly in 1989–1990, then, after two decades, it turned into an electoral autocracy. A new democratic era could be in the making after the April 2026 election. This book evaluates potential factors involved in these turnarounds by analyzing the post-1989 Hungarian trajectory and comparing it to other countries of the region.
If the dramatic backsliding is connected to social cultural aspects, how could democracy take root after 1989? If constitutional arrangements helped the subsequent autocratization, how was the Hungarian setup different from that in neighboring countries? Did Budapest mismanage the economy? Is Viktor Orbán unique? The findings in this book lead to universal lessons on how to build and protect democracy.
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