The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, 2nd ed., updates and augments the over ten-year-old first edition. It includes 3,036 signed essays (300 of them new), alphabetically arranged, and written or reviewed by subject experts and edited to form a consistent, readable, and straightforward reference. The entries cover topics and persons in major areas of popular culture: film; music; print culture; social life; sports; television and radio; and art and performance (which include theater, dance, stand-up comedy, and other live performance). The entries analyze each topic or person's significance in and relevance to American popular culture; in addition to basic factual information, readers will gain perspective on the cultural context in which the topic or person has importance.