The Kingdom of Swing; Title P-10

New York: Armed Services Inc, c1945. Armed Services Edition; Overseas Edition. Wraps. Fair. Format is approximately 5.5 inches by 4 inches. 254, [2] pages, plus covers. Pages browning/discolored. Cover is worn, torn, soiled, creased, and scuffed. This is the complete book--not a digest. As can be imagined, although there were a large number of copies printed, relatively few have survived the ravages of combat, the other ravages of time, the ephemeral nature of these softcover wartime editions, and both intentional and inadvertent destruction. This 'fair condition' copy has literally been through the wars. It's survival over nearly eight decades rivals the continued popularity of Benny Goodman's musical compositions and recordings. This special edition of The Kingdom of Swing has been made available to the Armed Forces of the United States through an arrangement with the original publisher, Oxford University Press, New York. Overseas edition for the Armed Forces. Distributed by the Special Services Division, A.S.F. for the Army, and by the Bureau of Naval Personnel for the Navy. U.S. Government Property. Not for sale. Published by Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., a non-profit organization established by the Council on Books in Wartime. Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 - June 13, 1986) was an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing". In the mid-1930s, Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in the United States. His concert at Carnegie Hall on January 16, 1938, is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's 'coming out' party to the world of 'respectable' music." Irving Kolodin (February 21, 1908 - April 29, 1988) was an American music critic and music historian. Irving Kolodin was born in New York City, New York. He wrote for the New York Sun from 1932 to 1950 and for the Saturday Review starting in 1947. He was best known for his popular Guide to Recorded Music. He also wrote program notes for the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera, and a 762-page "candid history" of the Met up to 1966. Armed Services Editions (ASEs) were small paperback books of fiction and nonfiction that were distributed in the American military during World War II. From 1943 to 1947, more than 1,300 ASE titles were distributed to service members, with whom they were enormously popular. The ASEs were edited and printed by the Council on Books in Wartime (CBW), an American non-profit organization, in order to provide entertainment to soldiers serving overseas, while also educating them about political, historical, and military issues. The slogan of the CBW was: "Books are weapons in the war of ideas." After the draft was reinstated in the U.S. in 1940, millions of young soldiers found themselves in barracks and training camps, where they were often bored. The head of the Army's Library Section, Raymond L. Trautman, sought to remedy this. In 1943, in collaboration with the graphic artist H. Stanley Thompson and the publisher and CWB executive Malcolm Johnson, Trautman proposed his idea of "Armed Services Editions": mass-produced paperbacks selected by a panel of literary experts from among classics, bestsellers, humor books and poetry. The support of William Warder Norton, chairman of the CWB's executive committee and president of the publishing house W. W. Norton, was instrumental for the project to be realized. Apart from the Army and Navy (through chief librarian Isabel DuBois), over seventy publishers and a dozen printing houses collaborated on the ASEs. To appease some publishers' concerns, a legal commitment was made that prevented the domestic distribution and post-war resale of surplus books, and educational and scientific books were excluded. The CBW appointed Philip Van Doren Stern, a printing expert and former Pocket Books executive, as project manager. The volunteer advisory panel that selected the books comprised notable figures from publishing and literature. The panel mainly focused on selecting recreational reading material, both fiction and nonfiction, primarily drawn from current publications and aiming at "all levels of taste within reasonable limits". The order of publication was chosen at random by pulling names out of a cookie jar; the first book to be printed was The Education of Hyman Kaplan by Leo Rosten.