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BRIDGE & TUNNEL BOYS: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and the Metropolitan Sound of the American Century
Born four months apart, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel both released their debut albums in the early 1970s, quickly becoming two of the most successful rock stars of their generation. While their critical receptions have been very different, surprising parallels emerge when we look at the arcs of their careers and the musical influences that have inspired them.
Bridge and Tunnel Boys compares the life and work of Long Islander Joel and Asbury Park, New Jersey, native Springsteen, considering how each man forged a distinctive sound that derived from his unique position on the periphery of the Big Apple. Locating their music within a longer tradition of the New York metropolitan sound, dating back to the early 1900s, cultural historian Jim Cullen explores how each man drew from the city’s diverse racial and ethnic influences. His study explains how, despite frequently releasing songs that questioned the American dream, Springsteen and Joel were able to appeal to wide audiences during both the national uncertainty of the 1970s and the triumphalism of the Reagan era. By placing these two New York–area icons in a new context, Bridge and Tunnel Boys allows us to hear their most beloved songs with new appreciation.
Praise for Bridge & Tunnel Boys:
“Historian Cullen (1980) tracks in this meticulous study how Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel ascended to fame…[T]his is an engrossing take on two music legends who documented the glory and melancholy of ‘ordinary American life.'” ― Publishers Weekly
“Jim Cullen is a wide-ranging historian with unusual insight into American pop culture. In Bridge and Tunnel Boys, he turns his focus to two giants of rock and roll, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen, a winning combination resulting in an entertaining and provocative book that will appeal to anyone interested in pop music and its relationship to the historical currents that influence its creation.” ― Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children
“It’s always a pleasure to read a new Jim Cullen book. This one is no exception as Cullen finds striking parallels in the music and lives of two very different—yet similar—musicians: Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. A fascinating cultural history of late twentieth century American popular music.” — June S. Sawyers ― author of We Take Care of Our Own: The Faith-Based Politics of Bruce Springsteen
“A thoughtful and probing look at the work and careers of two artists born just months apart, Bridge and Tunnel Boys lends highly readable context as to where Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen overlap—in terms of geography, musical approach, and audience—and where they diverge. Not solely for fans, this is a work that evokes a broader sense of the time and place in which the music was made, and how that music continues to influence the wider culture.” ―Fred Schruers, author of Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography
“Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel are epic figures who have been listened to, loved, and finally understood by Jim Cullen’s Bridge and Tunnel Boys. Long an astute observer of American popular culture, Cullen provides a radiant analysis of both artists’ music that is right on the money: perceptive and smart.” ―Peter Ames Carlin, author of Bruce
BORN IN THE USA: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition (HarperCollins, 1997. Literary Guild alternate selection. Second ed. Wesleyan 2005; also published in Britain). THIRD EDITION OUT NOW.
Pioneering the field of Springsteen scholarship when it first appeared in 1997, Born in the U.S.A. remains one of the definitive studies of Springsteen’s work and its impact on American culture. Moving beyond journalistic and biographical approaches, Jim Cullen situates the artist in a wider historical canvas that stretches from the Puritans to Barack Obama, showing how he has absorbed, refracted, and revitalized American mythology, including the American Dream, the work ethic, and the long quest for racial justice. Exploring difficult questions about Springsteen’s politics, he finds a man committed to both democratic and republican principles, as well as a patriot dedicated to revealing the lapses of a country he loves.
This third edition of Born in the U.S.A. is fully revised and updated, incorporating discussion of Springsteen’s wide output in the 21st century. While addressing Springsteen’s responses to events like 9/11, it also considers the evolution of his attitudes towards religion, masculinity, and his relationship with his audience. Whether a serious Springsteen fan or simply an observer of American popular culture, Born in the U.S.A. will give you a new appreciation for The Boss.
Praise for previous editions:
“Marshals impressive scholarship to assimilate the Boss into the main currents of American thought.”
— A.O. Scott ― The New York Times Book Review
“Jim Cullen writes with authority and empathy about the blue-collar roots that shaped Bruce Springsteen and gave rise to his music of rebellion. This is a provocative look at one of America’s cultural icons.”
— Eleanor Clift ― Newsweek
“Cullen’s line-by-line analysis of Bruce’s songs crackles with insight.” ― New York Daily News
“In articulating what’s behind the vaguely red-white-and-blue sentiments that Springsteen’s songs so often evoke, he has written a book as unpretentious and good-hearted as its subject.” ― Boston Phoenix
“This is a well-written, painstakingly researched, and surprisingly unpretentious book.” ― Asbury Park Press
“Cullen’s unapologetic pursuit of deeper cultural meanings in Bruce Springsteen’s music and life is refreshing … he proves a sensitive interpreter of Springsteen’s work.” ― Publisher’s Weekly
“Cullen’s study of Bruce Springsteen is a full-fledged cultural critique … his parting words, ‘When I listen to Bruce Springsteen, I remember how to be an American,’ finally ring true.” ― Kirkus Reviews
“Offers illumination and thoughtful, discriminating observations about its myriad subjects. And it has aged almost as well as Nebraska.” — Eric Alterman ― The Nation
1980: AMERICA’S PIVOTAL YEAR (Rutgers University Press)
1980 was a turning point in American history. When the year began, it was still very much the 1970s, with Jimmy Carter in the White House, a sluggish economy marked by high inflation, and the disco still riding the airwaves. When it ended, Ronald Reagan won the presidency in a landslide, inaugurating a rightward turn in American politics and culture. We still feel the effects of this tectonic shift today, as even subsequent Democratic administrations have offered neoliberal economic and social policies that owe more to Reagan than to FDR or LBJ. To understand what the American public was thinking during this pivotal year, we need to examine what they were reading, listening to, and watching.
1980: American Culture in Transition puts the news events of the era—everything from the Iran hostage crisis to the rise of televangelism—into conversation with the year’s popular culture. Separate chapters focus on the movies, television shows, songs, and books that Americans were talking about that year, including both the biggest hits and some notable flops that failed to capture the shifting zeitgeist. As he looks at the events that had Americans glued to their screens, from the Miracle on Ice to the mystery of Who Shot JR, cultural historian Jim Cullen garners surprising insights about how Americans’ attitudes were changing as they entered the 1980s.
BEST CLASS YOU NEVER HAD: A Novel (Permuted Press, 2021)
“How would you teach American history if the themes and lessons were entirely up to you? Jim Cullen’s brilliant new novel provides one very vivid set of answers. Through the eyes of retiring teacher Kevin Lee, we see history presented as it really is: a set of puzzles and riddles, about who we are and what we want to be. I want all of our young people to take a course from Mr. Lee, or from someone like him. Why can’t they?”
— Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of History of Education, University of Pennsylvania and author of “The Amateur Hour: A History of College Teaching in America”
MARTIN SCORSESE and the American Dream (Rutgers, 2021).
Martin Scorsese is a preeminent American filmmaker, and Jim Cullen is a preeminent historian of American culture. Spanning from the director’s youth on the mean streets of Manhattan to the closing scene of The Irishman, this book is teeming with brilliant insight into some of the most important films of the last 50 years. Highly recommended for cinephiles and for anyone interested in the story of the American Dream.”
— Jonathan D. Cohen ― co-editor of Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen
FROM MEMORY TO HISTORY: Television Versions of the Twentieth Century (Rutgers, 2021).
“This is a terrific book, fun and learned and provocative. Ranging across television from The Waltons to The Americans, Cullen provides an entertaining and thoughtful account of the ways that we remember and how
this is influenced and directed by what we watch. The discussions of popular television series are excellent, and together they provide a compelling account of historical television, reminding us that nothing artistic happens by chance and that we should be careful of what we believe.”– Jerome de Groot ― author of Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture
THOSE WERE THE DAYS: The American History of All in the Family (Rutgers, 2020).
“Little did I know about the world Archie Bunker and All in the Family were born into until I read Jim Cullen’s informed and perceptive “Those Were the Days: Why All In The Family Matters.” –Norman Lear
DEMOCRATIC EMPIRE: The United States Since 1945 (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016)
A brief survey of U.S. history since the end of World War II, focusing on popular beliefs, fears, and hopes that have shaped American culture and history over the last eight decades.
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE MODERN MEDIA (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014).
“An excellent introduction to the technologies, industries, cultural forms, and genres that constitute our media landscape. Cullen shows that the history of our media is in many ways the history of our sociality and our intimacies.” — Matthew Frye Jacobson, Yale University
THE SECRET LIVES OF TEACHERS (University of Chicago, 2015).
Welcome to “East Hudson,” an elite private school in New York where the students are attentive, the colleagues are supportive, and the tuition would make the average person choke on its string of zeroes. You might think a teacher here would have little in common with most other teachers in America, but as this veteran educator—writing anonymously—shows in this refreshingly honest account, all teachers are bound by a common thread.
SENSING THE PAST: Hollywood Stars and Historical Visions (Oxford, 2013).
“Sensing the Past will change the way readers think about movie stars and American history. Through a series of penetrating profiles, Jim Cullen examines how actors have embodied the central themes of our past and weds them to the present. Every page glistens with insights about actors we admire and movies we think we know.” — Louis P. Masur, author of The Civil War: A Concise History
ESSAYING THE PAST: How to Read, Write and Think about History (2009; third ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2017).
“There’s a level of sophistication in Essaying the Past that is disguised by its utterly clear and engaging style. Jim Cullen tells students just what they need to know to write about the past.” –Mari Jo Buhle, Brown University
IMPERFECT PRESIDENTS: Tales of Misadventure and Triumph (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
“Jim Cullen has dared to write an old-fashioned book about the virtues of American presidents. But instead of wooden tales about cherry trees and log cabins, he has given us complex portraits of flawed men who performed acts of moral courage at critical moments in the nation’s history. Imperfect Presidents invites us to admire these leaders–and even to find lessons in their stories–without indulging in hero-worship.” ― Steven Biel, Executive Director, Humanities Center, Harvard University, and author of American Gothic: A Life of America’s Most Famous Painting
Editor (with Lyde Cullen Sizer), THE CIVIL WAR ERA: A Narrative Anthology (Blackwell, 2005).
“The pulling together of all this material into one coherent volume represents a considerable editorial achievement, and one that highlights not just the most recent scholarly approaches to Civil War but also some of the reasons for the subject’s perennial fascination for students, academics and the public alike.” — Journal of American Studies
THE AMERICAN DREAM: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation (Oxford, 2003. Chinese edition forthcoming).
“Its straightforward and engaging narrative style ought to appeal to general readers of American history, and its broader explorations of freedom, equality and shared ideals offers a nice dose of depth as well.” — Publishers Weekly
RESTLESS IN THE PROMISED LAND: Catholics and the American Dream (Sheed & Ward, 2001).
“In Restless in the Promised Land, author Jim Cullen has turned a much-needed academic microscope on the seminal concept of the American Dream. He also examines Catholicism–with its ‘immediacy, beauty, and misery’–in its complex relationship to that Dream. In a lively narrative, Cullen searches out key intersections of the story of Catholics in the United States with the wider American milieu.” — Clyde Crews, author of American & Catholic: A popular history of Catholicism in the U.S.
Editor, POPULAR CULTURE IN AMERICAN HISTORY (Blackwell, 2001; second ed. 2013).
“Cullen’s outstanding collection helps readers understand the significance of key cultural changes, ranging from the movies to the web. Groundbreaking essays as well as insight into how historians work make this a valuable volume.” — Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
BORN IN THE USA: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition (HarperCollins, 1997. Literary Guild alternate selection. Second ed. Wesleyan 2005; also published in Britain).
“Jim Cullen writes with authority and empathy about the blue-collar roots that shaped Bruce Springsteen and gave rise to his music of rebellion. This is a provocative look at one of America’s cultural icons. –Eleanor Clift, Newsweek
THE ART OF DEMOCRACY: A Concise History of Popular Culture in the United States (Monthly Review Press, 1996).
“A thoroughly engaging look at American culture … Cullen’s articulate prose is spiced with wicked wit and he loves a good story … Demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of complex cultural forces.” — Publishers Weekly
THE CIVIL WAR IN POPULAR CULTURE: A Reusable Past (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995). History Book Club alternate.
To most Americans today, the Civil War is known through popular culture, not through the professional historical literature. In this book Jim Cullen examines popular renderings of the war — from books & films to songs & drama — showing how they have come to represent various truths about the war to certain groups, precisely because they resonate with contemporary points of division & struggle. Cullen takes specific examples from twentieth-century popular culture, such as books, films, rock n roll, & historical reenactors. For each, the recollection of the Civil War serves & is shaped by current concerns.
Jim Cullen 