Rock Star: The Making of Musical Icons from Elvis to Springsteen

The nature and meaning of rock stardom—celebrities who embody the most important social and cultural conflicts of their era.

"All stars are celebrities, but not all celebrities are stars," states David Shumway in the introduction to Rock Star, an informal history of rock stardom. This deceptively simple statement belies the complex definition and meaning of stardom and more specifically of rock icons. Shumway looks at the careers and cultural legacies of seven rock stars in the context of po...