Up all night : a world history of nightlife / Imogen Willetts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Willetts, Imogen, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nightlife--History.

Nightlife.

Physical Description:

374 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First Grove Atlantic US hardcover edition.

Other Title:

World history of nightlife

Place of Publication:

New York : Grove Press, 2026.

Summary:

"From the glamorous depravity of Studio 54 to the underground cabarets of Weimar Berlin, from Georgian London's gaudy pleasure gardens to the birth of techno in post-industrial Detroit, a brilliantly researched history charting four centuries of nightlife, showing the fascinating evolution of how humans have gone out after dark. There is a specific energy to it. Cafes and shops close their shutters. Darkness descends. "The air begins to tingle," wrote John Dos Passos of twenties New York. "It's tonight if you drink enough, talk enough, walk far enough, that the train of magical events will begin." Nightlife, as defined by party historian Imogen Willetts, is "a commercial and secular environment designed to offer a variety of pleasures at night." Up All Night traces its history back to a surprising starting point: seventeenth-century Japan, in a remote party destination built outside the shogun's capital. Nightlife has been at the frontier of popular culture and self-expression ever since, making cities famous, nurturing iconic countercultures, and growing into a multibillion-dollar industry, yet its sweeping history has been left largely untold. Up All Night is the story of the good nights and the great ones. How did jazz develop in the dancehalls of turn-of-the-century New Orleans? What was it like to party in 1920s Paris? Why were we so obsessed with the messy chaos of the early aughts LA scene? And what, in our increasingly online lives, are we missing when we pass up the chance of a big night out? Join Imogen Willetts for a guided tour behind the velvet rope of history's wildest nights out"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Yoshiwara, Edo

The Pleasure Gardens, London

Montmartre, Paris

New Orleans

Weimar Berlin

The Harlem Renaissance

The Jazz Age : Chicago, Paris and Shanghai

Post-War Opulence : Las Vegas and Havana

Discotheques and the Underground in New York City

DIY Nightclubs : New York City, London and Los Angeles

Techno, Raves and Ruinlust : Detroit, Berlin and Belgrade

Noughties Los Angeles.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Miller Fund bookplate.

Other Format:

Online version Willetts, Imogen Up all night

ISBN:

9780802167392

080216739X

OCLC:

1592065534