Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Performing Arts Comedy

The Comedians

Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy

read by Kliph Nesteroff

Publisher
Brilliance Audio
Initial publish date
Jun 2017
Category
Comedy, Popular Culture, Social History
  • CD-Audio

    ISBN
    9781543617887
    Publish Date
    Jun 2017
    List Price
    $14.99
  • CD-Audio

    ISBN
    9781978603905
    Publish Date
    Dec 2018
    List Price
    $29.99

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

In The Comedians, comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff brings to life a century of American comedy with real-life characters, forgotten stars, mainstream heroes, and counterculture iconoclasts. Based on over 200 original interviews and extensive archival research, Nesteroff's groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past 100 years.

Starting with the vaudeville circuit at the turn of the last century, Nesteroff introduces the first stand-up comedian - an emcee who abandoned physical shtick for straight jokes. After the repeal of Prohibition, Mafia-run supper clubs replaced speakeasies, and mobsters replaced vaudeville impresarios as the comedian's primary employer. In the 1950s, the late-night talk show brought stand-up to a wide public, while Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and Jonathan Winters attacked conformity and staged a comedy rebellion in coffeehouses. From comedy's part in the Civil Rights movement and the social upheaval of the late 1960s to the first comedy clubs of the 1970s and the cocaine-fueled comedy boom of the 1980s, The Comedians culminates with a new era of media-driven celebrity in the 21st century.

About the author

Kliph Nesteroff has been called the “premier popular historian of comedy,” by the New York Times. He is the author of two previous books, The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy and We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans and Comedy. His work has been praised by comedy legends from Gilbert Gottfried to Mel Brooks, Fred Willard to Norm Macdonald.

Kliph Nesteroff's profile page