This work examines the cultural events that have defined us and our time, the social milieu in which they took place, and the individuals engaged in them. From the Beat Generation to Camille Paglia, Picasso's "Guernica" to the massacre in Tiananmen Square, this book uncovers the histories embedded in even the most fleeting cultural moments and acts, and shows how, through our reading of the truths our culture tells and those it twists and conceals, we situate ourselves in that history and in the world. Greil Marcus is the author of "Mystery Train" and "In the Fascist Bathroom".