The James Bond films and the Beatles "were arguing for futures that were entirely contradictory," according to this scintillating study from journalist Higgs (William Blake vs. the World). The two cultural phenomena are, Higgs contends, the clashing Freudian embodiments of Thanatos (the death drive) and Eros (love): Bond, the emotionally numb guardian of the British Empire, is an arrogant, cold-blooded operative who uses violence as a means to protect the status quo, and most of the women he sleeps with die. The Beatles, working-class upstarts who scoffed at the establishment, were the dream lovers of countless teenage girls, and their songs wielded "enormous emotional power." Higgs builds his case around evocative profiles of the Beatles and their fandom--"When girls scream at boybands, the sound is at a higher pitch, simultaneously constant yet out of control"--and of Bond's evolving persona and his real-life alter-egos, including his creator, Ian Fleming--whom Higgs writes had a "romanticized imperial imagination" and allowed his racism to seep into the Bond books--and Bond's first screen avatar, Scottish actor Sean Connery. The result is a thoughtful romp through pop culture that's full of fresh ideas and sharp connections. Alison Lewis, Frances Goldin Literary. (Feb.)

Dr. No, the first James Bond movie, and "Love Me Do," the first single by the Beatles, were released on the same day in 1962. Bond and the Beatles, the author writes, "are our monsters in the cultural ecosystem"--Britain's two biggest contributions to modern pop culture. The two icons have had an interesting relationship: Bond once said he disliked the music of the Beatles; a Beatle composed the theme song for a Bond movie; and another Beatle married a Bond girl. But Higgs isn't primarily interested in relatively trivial connections. He has a bigger story to tell: a story of a country still healing after WWII, of a people struggling to reconcile its natural tendency toward death and destruction with its loftier ideals of peace and love. Bond, Higgs suggests, embodied the former; the Beatles, the latter. It's an interesting approach to a transitional period of British history, and the author's examination of these two cultural icons, and the way they captured the imagination of Britain and the world, is imaginative and illuminating. A very interesting blend of pop culture and history.