Material culture Books
Boydell & Brewer Ltd A Cultural History of the Medieval Sword: Power,
Book SynopsisThe sword is an important and multi-faceted symbol of military power, royal and communal authority, religion and mysticism. This study takes the sword beyond its functional role as a tool for killing, considering it as a cultural artefact, and the broader meaning and significance it had to its bearer. It should be on the bookshelf of anybody who claims to be interested in the importance of the sword in medieval life and thought and their cultural significance in the past - and present. Robert Woosnam-Savage, Royal Armouries. We see the sword as an object of nobility and status, a mystical artefact, imbued with power and symbolism. It is Roland's Durendal, Arthur's Excalibur, Aragorn's Narsil. A thing of beauty, its blade flashes in the sun, and its hilt gleams with opulent decoration. Yet this beauty belies a bloody function, for it is also a weapon that appears crude and brutal, requiring great strength to wield: cleaving armour, flesh, and bone. This wide-ranging book uncovers the breadth of the sword's place within the culture of high medieval Europe. Encompassing swords both real and imagined, physical, and in art and literature, it shows them as a powerful symbol of authority and legitimacy. It looks at the practicalities of the sword, including its production, as well as challenging our preconceptions about when and where it was used. In doing so, it reveals a far less familiar culture of swordsmanship, beyond the elite, in which swordplay was an entertainment, taught in the fencing school by masters such as Lichtenauer, Talhoffer, and Fiore, and codified in fencing manuals, or fechtbücher. The book also considers how our modern attempts to reconstruct medieval swordsmanship on screen, and in re-enactment and Historical European Martial Arts (or HEMA), shape, and have been shaped by, our preconceptions of the sword. As a whole, the weapon is shown to be at once far more mundane, and yet just as special, as we imagine it.Trade ReviewIt should be on the bookshelf of anybody who claims to be interested in the importance of the sword in medieval life and thought and their cultural significance in the past - and present. -- Robert Woosnam-SavageTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Mystical Blade 2. The Powerful Sword 3. The Falchion: A Case Study of Form, Function, and Symbolism 4. The Civilian Sword 5. Learning the Sword 6. Using the Sword 7. Recreating Medieval Swordsmanship Conclusion Glossary Bibliography
£27.00
Verso Books Dissidents among Dissidents: Ideology, Politics
Book SynopsisIlya Budraitskis, one of the country's most prominent leftist political commentators, explores the strange fusion of free-market ideology and postmodern nationalism that now prevails in Russia, and describes the post-Soviet evolution of its left. He incisively describes the twists and contradictions of the Kremlin's geopolitical fantasies, which blend up-to-date references to "information wars" with nostalgic celebrations of the tsars of Muscovy. Despite the revival of aggressive Cold War rhetoric, he argues, the Putin regime takes its bearings not from any Soviet inheritance, but from reactionary thinkers such as the White émigré Ivan Ilyin. Budraitskis makes an invaluable contribution by reconstructing the forgotten history of the USSR's dissident left, mapping an entire alternative tradition of heterodox Marxist and socialist thought from Khrushchev's Thaw to Gorbachev's perestroika. Doubly outsiders, within an intelligentsia dominated by liberal humanists, they offer a potential way out of the impasse between condemnations of the entire Soviet era and blanket nostalgia for Communist Party rule-suggesting new paths for the left to explore.Trade ReviewBudraitskis magnificently dismantles several myths. This includes the myth that the entire socialist past can be reduced to the idea of 'totalitarianism', and the myth that Russian society is divided in two, between liberals who love freedom and the masses, mired in tradition and thirsting for despotic rule. -- Alexei Yurchak, author of Everything Was Forever Until It Was No MoreA deep analysis of contemporary Russian reality which deftly dismantles the many myths in which that reality is shrouded. Budraitskis's writings deal with several themes and periods, but common to them all is a sensitivity to the details of the context and a capacity to question dogmatic certainties. The texts are beautifully written, in a clear, precise, and stylistically fine-tuned prose. This extremely important collection allows us to look at Russian and many other post-socialist societies from a new standpoint. -- Alexei Yurchak, author of Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No MoreIlya Budraitskis brings immense historical knowledge, moral clarity, and political insight into these crucial essays on twenty-first century Russia. From his critical analyses of Russian culture wars and the "geopoliticization of Russia" to his path-breaking history of socialist dissidence and contemporary Left discontent, Budraitskis proves an adroit guide through the post-Soviet landscape. He directs us not simply to persistent authoritarianism and reaction but also to the unrealized political alternatives that remain to be activated by Left anti-capitalists today. -- Jodi Dean. author of ComradeIlya Budraitskis is a gifted writer- non-conformist, insightful, sharp and polemical. Essays collected in this volume succeed to challenge both liberal and illiberal clichés about Putin's Russia. -- Ivan Krastev, author of Is It Tomorrow Yet?Refusing the neo-Cold War nonsense that depicts Putin's Russia as an anti-imperialist bulwark or a reincarnation of Stalin's empire, Ilya Budraitskis has more important things to think about than this confected Clash of Civilisations. Whether uncovering the forgotten socialists among the Soviet-era dissident movement or tracing the emergence of a true post-Soviet left into the present day, his work is sophisticated, invigorating and ethically rigorous. -- Owen Hatherley
£18.99
Boydell & Brewer Ltd Medieval Finds from Excavations in London 7
Book SynopsisSeven volume set of these classic works of reference, essential for students, scholars, archaeologists, re-enactors and historians of material culture, textiles and tools.
£114.75
Berghahn Books Materialising Exile: Material Culture and
Book Synopsis Focusing on the highly diverse Karenni refugee population living in camps on the Thai-Burma border, this innovative book explores materiality, embodiment, memory, imagination, and identity among refugees, providing new and important ways of understanding how refugees make sense of experience, self, and other. It examines how and to what ends refugees perceive, represent, manipulate, use as metaphor, and otherwise engage with material objects and spaces, and includes a focus on the real and metaphorical journeys that bring about and perpetuate exile. The combined emphasis on both displacement and materiality, and the analysis of the cultural construction and intersections of exilic objects, spaces, and bodies, are unique in the study of both refugees and material culture. Drawing theoretical influences from phenomenology, aesthetics, and beyond, as well as from refugee studies and anthropology, the author addresses the current lack of theoretical analysis of the material, visual, spatial, and embodied aspects of forced migration, providing a fundamentally interlinked analysis of enforced exile and materiality.Trade Review “Dudley’s deep ethnography of clothing and religious ceremonies adds a variety of evidence to her overall, convincing argument.” · Journal of Southeast Asian Studies “Sandra Dudley has written a well-crafted narrative about the experience of displacement in a little-understood part of the world…The points Dudley raises…are important and convincing.” · SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia “In her remarkable book, Sandra Dudley challenges dominant ideas about forced displacement, aesthetics and the lived experience of refugees from Burma…[Her] book is one that offers rare insight into the daily lives of Karenni refugees and also productively bridges the fields of forced displacement studies and cultural studies…The empirical and theoretical strengths of [this book]are matched by methodological insights that will be of value to scholars and practitioners in and beyond the field of forced displacement studies.” · South East Asia Research “Dudley is an anthropologist and, as such, her documentation is detailed and provides much insight into the camp refugee mindset, specifically that of the Karenni located in camps in Thailand…The material is rich with information that, when examined, could help deepen empathy for refugees in camp situations, for resettled refugees, and the agencies and individuals who service and respond to them. It is a ‘must read’.” · Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies “Sandra Dudley brings unique and valuable insights into the field of forced migration both through her study of the Karenni refugees in Thailand, an overlooked group of refugees who have fled dire circumstances of counter/insurgency and destruction, and a material culture disciplinary lens. This is an eloquently composed text with high scholarly merits.” · Hazel Lang, Australian National UniversityTable of Contents Figures Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations Chapter 1. Materialising Exile and Karenni Refugees: An Introduction The Sensoriality and Materiality of Exile Continuity with Past Times and Places Being at Home, Being in Place The Karenni Materialising Exile: Refugee Studies, Material Culture Studies and Beyond Chapter 2. In-Between: Being a Karenni Refugee Burmese Refugees in Thailand The Karenni Camps Being a Refugee: Self-Perceptions Material Forms, Bodies and Sense Experience in Being a Refugee Coping With Life in the Camps: Habit and Consuming Time Liminality Chapter 3. Inside/Outside: Refugee Journeys Journeys to and from the Camps Cross-Border Movement and Knowledge Forms of Knowledge and Emotional Response Memory and Feeling in Journey Narratives Journeying as Normal Landscape, Senses, Bodies and Things Chapter 4. Remembering, Forgetting and Imagining the Pre-exile Past Dress and Connections with the Past Dïy-küw and Thoughts of Home Moving Beyond Rupture Chapter 5. Coping and (Re)constructing ‘Home’ in Displacement Wider Contexts and Influences … and T-shirts Objects, Landscapes, Bodies: Metaphors and Foils for Experience Making Things, Making Place, Making Self Becoming ‘At Home’ in Exile Chapter 6. Materialising Home and Exile Conceptions of Home Continuity and Change Exilic Objects and Bodies Feeling Right With and In the World Bibliography Index
£89.10
Four Courts Press Ltd The Art, Literature and Material Culture of the
Book Synopsis
£87.47
James Currey The Politics of the Dead in Zimbabwe 2000-2020:
Book SynopsisInnovative and challenging study that provides fresh insights on the anthropology of death and postcolonial politics. In 1898, just before she was hanged for rebelling against colonial rule, Charwe Nyakasikana, spirit medium of the legendary ancestor Ambuya Nehanda, famously prophesised that "my bones will rise again". A century later bones, bodies and human remains have come to occupy an increasingly complex place in Zimbabwe's postcolonial milieu. From ancestral "bones" rising again in the struggle for independence, and later land, to resurfacing bones of unsettled wardead; and from the troubling decaying remains of post-independence gukurahundi massacres to the leaky, tortured bodies of recent election violence, human materials are intertwined in postcolonial politics in ways that go far beyond, yet necessarily implicate, contests over memory, commemoration and the representation of the past. In this book Joost Fontein examines the complexities of human remains in Zimbabwe's 'politics of the dead'. Challenging and innovative, he takes us beyond current scholarship on memory, commemoration and the changing significance of 'traditional' death practices, to examine the political implications of human remains as material substances, as duplicitous rumours, and as returning spirits. Linking the indeterminacy of human substances to the productive but precarious uncertainties of rumours and spirits, the book points to how the incompleteness of death is politically productive and ultimately derives from the problematic, entangled excessivities of human material and immaterial existence, and is deeply intertwined with the stylistics of postcolonial power and politics. Joost Fontein is Professor of Anthropology, University of Johannesburg. He was previously Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa and Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Remaking Mutirikwi: Landscape, Water and Belonging (James Currey, 2015), shortlisted for the African Studies Association 2016 Herskovits Prize. Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana): University of Johannesburg PressTrade ReviewAn innovative and challenging study that provides fresh insights on the anthropology of death and post-colonial politics. * Zimbabwe Review *This very important book offers valuable contributions to our understanding of the everyday politics of the dead in Zimbabwe. The author's theorization and discussion of the typologies of death, bones, and human remains are useful to a wider audience, within and beyond Zimbabwe, including academics and graduate students within the field of anthropology and sociology of death, political and contemporary history of Zimbabwe, and spirituality and religious studies. -- Death StudiesBeyond doubt, this is a 'must-have' work for all interested in the relationship between death and the broader, intriguing Zimbabwean past. -- Journal of Southern African StudiesTable of ContentsIntroduction Changing death and human corporeality across Africa and beyond The politics of the dead in Zimbabwe The power of uncertainty Sources and structure of the book 1 Liberation Heritage: Bones and the politics of commemoration The burial of Gift Tandare Heritage and commemoration Heritage and commemoration in Zimbabwe Liberation heritage Unsettling Bones 2 Bones & Tortured Bodies: Corporealities of violence and post-violence Resurfacing bones Emotive materiality, affective presence and transforming materials Tortured bodies Towards 'healing' and 'reconciliation' during the GNU 2009-2013 Conclusions 3 Chibondo: Exhumations, uncertainty and the excessivity of human materials The Chibondo exhumations Too 'fresh', 'intact', fleshy, leaky and stinky? The torque of materiality and the excessive potentiality of human remains The politics of uncertainty Conclusions 4 Political Accidents: Rumours, death and the politics of uncertainty The death of Solomon Mujuru Factionalism, rivalries and murky business dealings The inquest A particular kind of death Conclusions 5 Precarious Possession: Rotina Mavhunga, politics and the uncertainties of mediumship Rotina Mavhunga - the diesel n'anga Precarious occupation 6 Mai Melissa: Towards the alterity of spirit and the incompleteness of death Towards the alterity of spirit Conclusions 7 After Mugabe Burying Bob Conclusions Bodies and spirits, change and continuity AIDS, cholera, Congo, prisons, Chiadzwa, diaspora, FTLR, and charismatic Pentecostalisms New directions for liberation heritage Ambuya Nehanda returns? Exhuming Bob?
£85.50
James Currey The Politics of the Dead in Zimbabwe 2000-2020:
Book SynopsisInnovative and challenging study that provides fresh insights on the anthropology of death and postcolonial politics. In 1898, just before she was hanged for rebelling against colonial rule, Charwe Nyakasikana, spirit medium of the legendary ancestor Ambuya Nehanda, famously prophesised that "my bones will rise again". A century later bones, bodies and human remains have come to occupy an increasingly complex place in Zimbabwe's postcolonial milieu. From ancestral "bones" rising again in the struggle for independence, and later land, to resurfacing bones of unsettled wardead; and from the troubling decaying remains of post-independence gukurahundi massacres to the leaky, tortured bodies of recent election violence, human materials are intertwined in postcolonial politics in ways that go far beyond, yet necessarily implicate, contests over memory, commemoration and the representation of the past. In this book Joost Fontein examines the complexities of human remains in Zimbabwe's 'politics of the dead'. Challenging and innovative, he takes us beyond current scholarship on memory, commemoration and the changing significance of 'traditional' death practices, to examine the political implications of human remains as material substances, as duplicitous rumours, and as returning spirits. Linking the indeterminacy of human substances to the productive but precarious uncertainties of rumours and spirits, the book points to how the incompleteness of death is politically productive and ultimately derives from the problematic, entangled excessivities of human material and immaterial existence, and is deeply intertwined with the stylistics of postcolonial power and politics. Joost Fontein is Professor of Anthropology, University of Johannesburg. He was previously Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa and Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Remaking Mutirikwi: Landscape, Water and Belonging (James Currey, 2015), shortlisted for the African Studies Association 2016 Herskovits Prize. Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana): University of Johannesburg PressTrade ReviewAn innovative and challenging study that provides fresh insights on the anthropology of death and post-colonial politics. * Zimbabwe Review *This very important book offers valuable contributions to our understanding of the everyday politics of the dead in Zimbabwe. The author's theorization and discussion of the typologies of death, bones, and human remains are useful to a wider audience, within and beyond Zimbabwe, including academics and graduate students within the field of anthropology and sociology of death, political and contemporary history of Zimbabwe, and spirituality and religious studies. -- Death StudiesBeyond doubt, this is a 'must-have' work for all interested in the relationship between death and the broader, intriguing Zimbabwean past. -- Journal of Southern African StudiesTable of ContentsIntroduction Changing death and human corporeality across Africa and beyond The politics of the dead in Zimbabwe The power of uncertainty Sources and structure of the book 1 Liberation Heritage: Bones and the politics of commemoration The burial of Gift Tandare Heritage and commemoration Heritage and commemoration in Zimbabwe Liberation heritage Unsettling Bones 2 Bones & Tortured Bodies: Corporealities of violence and post-violence Resurfacing bones Emotive materiality, affective presence and transforming materials Tortured bodies Towards 'healing' and 'reconciliation' during the GNU 2009-2013 Conclusions 3 Chibondo: Exhumations, uncertainty and the excessivity of human materials The Chibondo exhumations Too 'fresh', 'intact', fleshy, leaky and stinky? The torque of materiality and the excessive potentiality of human remains The politics of uncertainty Conclusions 4 Political Accidents: Rumours, death and the politics of uncertainty The death of Solomon Mujuru Factionalism, rivalries and murky business dealings The inquest A particular kind of death Conclusions 5 Precarious Possession: Rotina Mavhunga, politics and the uncertainties of mediumship Rotina Mavhunga - the diesel n'anga Precarious occupation 6 Mai Melissa: Towards the alterity of spirit and the incompleteness of death Towards the alterity of spirit Conclusions 7 After Mugabe Burying Bob Conclusions Bodies and spirits, change and continuity AIDS, cholera, Congo, prisons, Chiadzwa, diaspora, FTLR, and charismatic Pentecostalisms New directions for liberation heritage Ambuya Nehanda returns? Exhuming Bob?
£24.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Interior Design: A Critical Introduction
Book SynopsisThe practice of interior design has become ever more specialised as new technologies have expanded how designers can use light, space, colour and decoration. At the same time, the study of the interior - private, public and corporate - has become a complex field. Interior design is now a rich and sophisticated discipline which draws on many others: psychology, cultural theory, philosophy, gender studies, anthropology, and history, as well as design history, architecture, art and craft, furniture, and fashion. Interior Design presents a critical introduction to contemporary theory and practice. The book highlights the key concepts behind the study of interiors in order to present an inter-disciplinary overview of the subject. Always aware that design is a practical discipline, the book is illustrated throughout with examples and detailed case studies of interior design practice.Trade ReviewThe book is an inspiration for further investigation into the theory and discipline of interior design and interior architecture. Ellen S. Klingenberg, Oslo National Academy of the Arts The book brings a cultural and critical overview to the knowledge and practice of Interior Design in a timely and engaging way that honours the complexity of the discipline. Lynn Chalmers, University of Manitoba, CanadaTable of Contents1. Introduction 2. The Development of the Interior 3. History and Structure of the Profession 4. The Processes of Design 5. The Process of Interior Design 6. Space 7. Colour and Colour systems 8. Light 9. Human Needs and Factors 10. Decoration and Ornament 11. Sustainability 12. Interior Elements, Materials and Furnishings 13. The Business of Interior Design Glossary Notes Bibliography Index
£36.09
V & A Publishing The Lives of the Objects: Collecting Design
Book SynopsisIn this intriguing insight into the work and history of a museum, V&A director and historian Dr Tristram Hunt brings together ten renowned V&A curators to tell the stories behind ten of their most treasured objects. 'Tipu's Tiger' (an almost life-size wooden semi-automaton mauling a European soldier), the 'Great Bed of Ware' (an Elizabethan bed for 8 people) and a Shakespeare First Folio are among the featured highlights whose route to the V&A collections are entertainingly revealed. Through these stories, this insightful history of museum curation - a world of careful study and sometimes remarkable fortuity - shows how the priorities of a museum are shaped and change over time. Published to explore in more depth some of the stories featured in the BBC six part series Secrets of the Museum.Trade Review'...full of fascinating, if occasionally tragic and controversial, tales of acquisitions.' Ciara Dossett, Daily Mail, 6th February 2020Table of ContentsThe Lives of the Objects, Tristram Hunt / Copy of Trajan's Column, Rebecca Knott / The Raphael Cartoons, Ana Debenedetti / Tipu's Tiger, Susan Stronge / First Folio, Geoffrey Marsh / The Rodin Gift, Alicia Robinson / The Great Bed of Ware, Nick Humphrey / Fold-up Chair, Johanna Agerman Ross / Evening Ensemble, Sonnett Stanfill / Rangoon: Signal Pagoda, Martin Barnes / Robin Hood Gardens, Christopher Turner
£24.00
University of KwaZulu-Natal Press isiShweshwe: A history of the indigenisation of
Book SynopsisThe cross-cultural usage of a particular cloth type – blueprint – is central to South African cultural history. Known locally as seshoeshoe or isishweshwe, among many other localised names, South African blueprint originated in the Far East and East Asia. Adapted and absorbed by the West, blueprint in Africa was originally associated with trade, coercion, colonisation, Westernisation, religious conversion and even slavery, but residing within its hues and patterns was a resonance that endured. The cloth came to reflect histories of hardship, courage and survival, but it also conveyed the taste and aesthetic predilections of its users, preferences often shared across racial and cultural divides. In its indigenisation, isishweshwe has subverted its former history and alien origins and has come to reflect the authority of its users and their culture, conveying resilience, innovation and adaptation and above all a distinctive South Africanness.In this beautifully illustrated book Juliette Leeb-du Toit traces the origins of the cloth, its early usage and cultural adaptations, and its emerging regional, cultural and aesthetic significance. In examining its usage and current national significance, she highlights some of the salient features associated with histories of indigenisation.
£48.75
NMSE - Publishing Ltd A Swedish Field Trip to the Outer Hebrides, 1934
Book SynopsisSven T Kjellberg, Director of Goteborgs Historiska Museum (now called the Goteborgs Stadsmuseum), and his assistant Olof Hasslof travelled through the islands of the Outer Hebrides in 1934 for research into the maritime culture of the area, with the emphasis on material culture - the boats, the tools of the trade. Renowned ethnologist Professor Emeritus Alexander Fenton presents the research with additional material of his own. A key feature of the book are the 80 sepia photographs and 35 line drawings published here for the first time.Trade Review' ... These are living homes. There is white sand scattered on the floor. There are dressers with crockery by the wall. Kettles and griddles hang from links and hooks above the central fire of stacked peats. Black cats and dogs huddle as close as possible to the low flames. ...' West Highland Free Press ' ... Along with a fascinating photo-record of island life, they made sketches and plans of everything from peat-spades to pothooks, from barns to boxbeds. ... it bespeaks their unquestioning respect for the way of life they found; a respect it's hard not to share as we peer through this window on to a vanished age.' Scotsman ' ... This is a fairly specialised book, but a beautifully produced one that draws the more casual reader in with its wonderful photographs and fascinating drawings. ... a hugely enlightening read.' Undiscovered Scotland ' ... In their travels, they discovered a culture and people little affected by the homogenised, secular ways of the modern world.' Country Life ' ... a wonderful illustration of a life that has virtually disappeared. ... The diary goes into great detail about the houses visited and the lifestyle of the crofters ... The photographs of the islanders and their buildings are quite remarkable.' Scottish Life 'As the book represents the first systematic ethnological field research among the coastal population of the Outer Hebrides, it has great documentary value, and for scholars dealing with coastal culture in fishing communities there will be valuable information available in this book.' International Journal of Maritime History ' ... another notable legacy of his [Professor Sandy Fenton's] international interests and scholarship.' Review of Scottish CultureTable of ContentsSECTION 1 Introduction Landscape and Land Use Cultural Connections of the Outer Hebrides Scandinavian Scholars in the Outer Hebrides Aage Roussell Gudmund Hatt Ake Campbell Jens Worsaae British Scholars in the Outer Hebrides Captain F W L Thomas (Sir) Arthur Mitchell E Cecil Curwen Preserving a Blackhouse: 14a Callanish The Blackhouse: its Features and Terminology Hand Tools Blackhouse Furniture SECTION 2 Diary and Notes by Sven T Kjellberg and Olof Hasslof, 1934, translated from Swedish. SECTION 3 A Century of Change, 1840s - 1934 Buildings and Structural Features The Kelp Industry Cropping and Stocking Lug-marks Boats and Fishing Conclusion Appendix 1: List of Photographs taken in the Outer Hebrides by Sven T Kjellberg and Olof Hasslof.
£22.50
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Culduthel: An Iron Age Craftworking Centre in
Book Synopsis
£27.00
Prospect Books Food and Material Culture: Proceedings of the
Book SynopsisTopics covered by the papers include: Aesthetics and politics of the kitchen in fascist Italy, The bamboo tea whisk in Japanese tea culture, Cooking under fire, 1914-1918, Sugar sculpture in Italian court banquets, Mongolian milk spoons, Perfuming the table in old Baghdad.
£27.00
Quercus Publishing They Were Found Wanting: The Transylvanian
Book Synopsis "Perfect late night reading" JAN MORRIS "Banffy is a born storyteller" PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR "Totally absorbing" MARTHA KEARNEY "So evocative" SIMON JENKINSThe second volume of Miklos Banffy's panoramic trilogy of the dying years of the Habsburg empire. The tale of two Transylvanian cousins, their loves, their ambitions and their fortunes continues in They Were Found Wanting. Balint Abady is forced to part from the beautiful and unhappily married Adrienne Uzdy. Laszlo Gyeroffy is rapidly heading for self-destruction through drink and his own fecklessness. The politicians, quarrelling among themselves and stubbornly ignoring their countrymen's real needs, are still pursuing their vendetta with the Habsburg rule from Vienna. Meanwhile they fail to notice how the Great Powers - through such events as Austria's annexation of Bosnia-Herzagovina in 1908 - are moving ever closer to the conflagration of 1914-1918 that will destroy their world for ever. Banffy's portrait contrasts a life of privilege and corruption with the lives and problems of an expatriate Romanian peasant minority whom Balint tries to help. It is an unrivalled evocation of a rich and fascinating aristocratic world oblivious of its impending demise.#Part two of the trilogy that began with They Were Counted, and ends with They Were Divided.Translated from the Hungarian by Patrick Thursfield and Katalin Banffy-JelenWith a Foreword by Patrick Leigh-FermorWINNER OF THE WEIDENFELD TRANSLATION PRIZETrade ReviewPleasure of a different scale and kind. It is a sort of Galsworthian panorama of life in the dying years of the Habsburg empire - perfect late night reading for nostalgic romantics like me. -- Jan Morris * Observer "Books of the Year" *Just about as good as any fiction I have ever read, like Anna Karenina and War and Peace rolled into one. Love, sex, town, country, money, power, beauty, and the pathos of a society which cannot prevent its own destruction - all are here. -- Charles Moore * Daily Telegraph *An impressively fluent text. In telling its larger story, it gives a wealth of detail about an extraordinary society, and makes you feel that the colours, scents and sounds of distant lives are still spread out before you. * Times Literary Supplement *Fascinating. He writes about the quirky border lairds and squires and the high misty forest ridges and valleys of Transylvania with something of the ache that Milosz brings to the contemplation of his lost Eden * Guardian *Plunge into the cleansing waters of a rediscovered masterpiece. -- Michael Henderson * Daily Telegraph *Like Joseph Roth and Robert Musil, Miklos Banffy is one of those novelists Austria-Hungary specialised in. Intimate and sparkling chroniclers of a wider ruin, ironic and elegiac. -- Julian Evans * Daily Telegraph *Full of arresting descriptions, beautiful evocations of scenery and wise political and moral insights. -- Francis King * Spectator *
£11.69
NMSE - Publishing Ltd Scotland to the World: Treasures from the
Book SynopsisShowcases over a hundred treasures from the collections of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, from the departments of Scottish History and Archaeology/Art and Design/Science and Technology/Natural Sciences/World Cultures. Table of ContentsForeword Scottish History and Archaeology Art and Design Science and Technology Natural Sciences World Cultures
£27.00
HENI Publishing Zarina Bhimji: Lead White
Book SynopsisIn Lead White Zarina Bhimji explores the history of Zanzibar. Her expert curatorial eye has scoured national archives and found documents bearing witness to the country's past and by extension its present. Filtered through Bhimji's artistic vision, these documents become a poetic exploration of numerous topics including national health, education and contemporary Africa. The documents collected by Bhimji come from a wide variety of places. There are legal and constitutional documents, but also photographs and personal effects. A particular point of interest in Lead White is paper and how texture and light function as an echo of the themes investigated here. This substantial monograph marks a departure of sorts for Bhimji. In this work she incorporates to her new mediums of digital photography and the traditional craft of embroidery. This interplay, in Gallagher's words, forms a 'tension between present and past, and enhances the relationship between the specific and the universal.'
£22.49
The School of Life Press How to Survive the Modern World: making sense of,
Book SynopsisA guide to modern times that explores the challenges living in the 21st century can pose to our mental wellbeing. The modern world has brought us a range of extraordinary benefits and joys, including technology, medicine and transport. But it can also feel as though modern times have plunged us ever deeper into greed, despair and agitation. Seldom has the world felt more privileged and resource-rich yet also worried, blinkered, furious, panicked and self-absorbed. How to Survive the Modern World is the ultimate guide to navigating our unusual times. It identifies a range of themes that present acute challenges to our mental wellbeing. The book tackles our relationship to the news media, our ideas of love and sex, our assumptions about money and our careers, our attitudes to animals and the natural world, our admiration for science and technology, our belief in individualism and secularism – and our suspicion of quiet and solitude. In all cases, the book helps us to understand how we got to where we are, digging deeply and fascinatingly into the history of ideas, while pointing us towards a saner individual and collective future. The emphasis isn’t just on understanding modern times but also on knowing how we can best relate to the difficulties these present. The book helps us to form a calmer, more authentic, more resilient and sometimes more light-hearted relationship to the follies and obsessions of our age. If modern times are (in part) something of a disease, this is both the diagnostic and the soothing, hope-filled cure.
£18.00
Charco Press Untold Microcosms: Latin American Writers in the
Book SynopsisCollection, colonialism, translation, and the ephemera that shapes the stories we tell about ourselves.Featuring new original works by: Yásnaya Elena Aguilar, Cristina Rivera Garza, Joseph Zárate, Juan Cárdenas, Velia Vidal, Lina Meruane, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Dolores Reyes, Carlos Fonseca, Djamila RibeiroThe Central and South American collection at the British Museum collections contains approximately 62,000 objects, spanning 10,000 years of human history. The vast majority cannot be displayed, and those objects are the subject of Untold Microcosms , a collection of ten stories from ten Latin American writers, and inspired by the narratives about our past that we create through museums, in spite of their gaps and disarticulations.Trade Review
£9.49
Chelsea Green Publishing UK Material
Book SynopsisAn important book, brimming with insight.' Nicholas Evans, author of The Horse WhispererMaterial is generous, wise, fascinating and fundamentally humane.' Dan Richards, author of OutpostThrowing a pot. Building a bench. Sewing clothes. Creating a linocut illustration. Carving a spoon. What does it mean to make things with your hands in a digital age, full of mass-market, disposable items?Following the path trod by bestselling authors Lars Mytting, Robert Macfarlane and Barn the Spoon, craftsman Nick Kary explores what it means to be a maker. Through beautifully crafted writing filled with memorable craftspeople, landscapes, stories and scenery, Material is a rich celebration of what it means to imagine and create.Nick champions the voices of artisans across the UK, from potters to woodworkers, reminding us of the rich vein of knowledge and skills that d
£11.69
Smithsonian Books Engaging Smithsonian Objects through Science,
Book SynopsisHow do we come to know the world around us? What about worlds apart from our own—outer space, distant cultures, or even long-past eras of history? Engaging Smithsonian Objects through Science, History, and the Arts explores these questions and suggests an answer: we come to know our world and worlds apart through the objects that represent them. Objects are a window, and by looking through them we can learn and understand more about the people who made them and the time and place they came from. In the pursuit of this understanding museums are invaluable; they are repositories not just of things but also of past, present, and future knowledge. Engaging Smithsonian Objects puts these ideas into practice, using objects to bring us to new knowledge and showing how museums support us in the endeavor. The book is organized around ten objects from the Smithsonian’s vast collections. Some of the objects are iconic—the Ruby Slippers from the The Wizard of Oz or three Stradivarius string instruments—while others are more ordinary, though no less interesting—an Iron Lung or a Hawaiian gourd drum. Two different authors with expertise in different academic disciplines write about each object from their unique professional and personal perspective. Both the authors and the ten featured objects represent a range of academic disciplines, from art to anthropology to geology. Taken together, the twenty essays in the book demonstrate just how much we can learn from objects by considering their kaleidoscopic meaning and significance from a variety of viewpoints. The book’s interdisciplinary engagement with objects was inspired by the Smithsonian Material Culture Forum, now in its twenty-sixth year. For students of material culture and museum studies, this book illustrates the vitality and value of exploring material culture through the lens of intersecting disciplinary perspectives. For students of curiosity and lifelong learning, this book offers a lively and thoughtful look into the Smithsonian’s collection and the many vibrant worlds it represents. Richly illustrated with color plates and photographs throughout, Engaging Smithsonian Objects through Science, History, and the Arts is a beautiful and stimulating answer to the question, “How do we know our world, and how can we know more?”
£30.39
Smithsonian Books The Value of Money
Book Synopsis
£28.20
Brepols N.V. Medievalism and the Gothic in Australian Culture
Book Synopsis
£37.35
Springer International Publishing AG Object Studies: Introductions to Material Culture
Book SynopsisObject Studies: Introductions to Material Culture is a textbook that introduces students to an interdisciplinary approach to material cultural study. This text helps reveal how everyday objects from pens and coffee cups to our most cherished keepsakes help define our collective histories and personal narratives. Object Studies is organized around accessible and engaging chapters on objects with “model essays” that present original projects designed to engage students with a series of concepts and research activities. Each will demonstrate a key methodology tied to specific learning outcomes, but all chapters will be intertwined in their attention to the project of developing the core skills of “object studies”: careful viewing, writing detailed descriptions, setting out and testing research hypotheses, and telling stories through material artifacts. Aimed towards undergraduate students taking courses in material culture as well as postgraduate students embarking on independent research projects these chapter “studies” are practically oriented and demonstrate research projects that can be undertaken either in a course or even through personal study. Chapters in Object Studies conclude with research questions, suggestions on methodology, and a discursive bibliography designed to help students pursue their own projects based on these examples.Table of ContentsChapter 1: Personal Objects.- Chapter 2: Objects and Local History.- Chapter 3: A History of the World in Coffee Cups.- Chapter 4: Collecting Things: The Psychology of Accumulation, from Museums to Hoarders.- Chapter 5: The Things We Read.- Chapter 6: Consuming Objects.- Chapter 7: Thinking with Things.
£22.49
De Gruyter Sensory Reflections: Traces of Experience in
Book SynopsisThis volume draws on emerging scholarship at the intersection of two already vibrant fields: medieval material culture and medieval sensory experience. The rich potential of medieval matter (most obviously manuscripts and visual imagery, but also liturgical objects, coins, textiles, architecture, graves, etc.) to complement and even transcend purely textual sources is by now well established in medieval scholarship across the disciplines. So, too, attention to medieval sensory experiences—most prominently emotion—has transformed our understanding of medieval religious life and spirituality, violence, power, and authority, friendship, and constructions of both the self and the other. Our purpose in this volume is to draw the two approaches together, plumbing medieval material sources for traces of sensory experience - above all ephemeral and physical experiences that, unlike emotion, are rarely fully described or articulated in texts.
£106.15
De Gruyter Rhapsodic Objects: Art, Agency, and Materiality
Book SynopsisCirculation and imitation are key factors in shaping the material world. The authors in this volume explore how technical knowledge, immaterial desires, and political agendas impact the production and consumption of visual and material culture across times and places. Their essays map multidirectional transactions for cultural goods in which source countries can be positioned at the center. Rhapsodic – literally to stitch or weave songs – paired with objects – from thrown against – intertwines complexity and action. Rhapsodic objects thus beckons to the layered narratives of the objects themselves, their making, and their reception over time. The concept further underlines their potential to express creativity, generate emotion, and reveal histories – often tainted with violence.
£53.12
Bohlau Verlag Object Links: Dinge in Beziehung
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£56.71
Bohlau Verlag Ergrabene Kontexte: Interpretationen
Book Synopsis
£97.87
Bohlau Verlag Materielle Kultur und Konsum in der Frühen
Book SynopsisOb unscheinbarer Alltagsgegenstand oder gehüteter Kunstschatz die in diesem Buch vorgestellten Objekte haben Geschichte und machen Geschichte erzählbar. Zehn exemplarische Studien befassen sich mit der Frage, wie frühneuzeitliche Menschen, Institutionen und Gemeinwesen mit den sie umgebenden Dingen und den ihnen zur Verfügung stehenden Gütern umgingen. Anhand von Materialien und Macharten, Verbrauchsformen und Gebrauchsweisen, Eignungen und Anforderungen, Beziehungen und Bewegungen, Wissen und Wahrnehmungen werden aus objekt- und konsumgeschichtlicher Perspektive die Grundzüge der frühneuzeitlichen Epoche umrissen. Der aus einem internationalen und interdisziplinären Netzwerk hervorgegangene Band gibt erstmals eine deutschsprachige Einführung in dieses innovative Gebiet der Frühneuzeitforschung.
£60.08
Harrassowitz Vom Wesen Der Dinge: Realitaten Und Konzeptionen
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£54.15
Dietrich Reimer Bekenntnisse: Formen Und Formeln
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£36.10
Austrian Academy of Sciences Press Material Culture and Identities in Egyptology:
Book Synopsis
£90.25
Dr Ludwig Reichert Katalog Der Romischen Graber Des 1. Jahrhunderts
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£111.15
Dr Ludwig Reichert Stadt - Land - Fluss. Grabdenkmaler Der Treverer
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£96.90
Transcript Verlag Materials of Culture: Approaches to Materials and
Book SynopsisWhile the so-called material turn in the humanities and the social sciences has inspired a vibrant discourse on objects, things, and the concept of materiality in general, less attention has been paid to materials, particularly in cultural studies scholarship. With each of its chapters taking a particular material as its point of departure, this volume offers a palette of fresh approaches to materials within the realm of cultural studies. The contributors call for a materials-based perspective on culture, which has become all the more pertinent by the need for sustainability in times of climate change, energy crisis, conflict, migration, and the lingering coronavirus pandemic.
£45.04
V&R unipress GmbH Transottoman Matters: Objects Moving through
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£45.59
JOVIS Verlag Material Culture: Assembling and Disassembling
Book SynopsisLandscript 5 examines Material Culture in landscape architecture theory and design. Designed landscapes are temporal assemblages of extant and introduced materials, constructed and maintained through the efforts of human labor, mediated through non-human forces, and shaped by constantly changing cultural relations. Sites are bounded by property lines, yet their material relationships—from the transport of construction commodities to global water cycles—extend to untold limits. Designed landscapes are models of human-nature relations, at the same time they are human-nature relations, simultaneously representing and actualizing the co-production of the world. Landscript 5 looks at the aesthetic implications and design opportunities engaging landscape’s extended Material Culture.
£23.40
Dr Ludwig Reichert Die Stuckarbeiten Aus Kharab Sayyar: Das Grosse
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£156.75
Dr Ludwig Reichert Organizing an Urban Way of Life in the Steppe:
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£210.90
Dr Ludwig Reichert Die Konstanzer Marktstatte Im Mittelalter Und in
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£98.80
Dr Ludwig Reichert Das Romische Graberfeld Von Stettfeld II.:
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£84.55
Dr Ludwig Reichert Lauchheim I.: Beitrage Zur Computertomographie
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£64.60
Dr Ludwig Reichert Lauchheim II.1.: Katalog Der Graber 1-300. Band
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£141.55
Dr Ludwig Reichert Verlag Lowenmensch Und Mehr: Die Ausgrabungen 2008-2013
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£50.35
Dr Ludwig Reichert Lauchheim II.2: Katalog Der Graber 301-600
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£141.55
Dr Ludwig Reichert Germanische Siedlungsspuren Des 3. Bis 5.
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£171.00
Dr Ludwig Reichert Archaologie Des Mithraskultes: Architektur Und
Book Synopsis
£98.80
Dr Ludwig Reichert Konstanz Obere Augustinergasse: Ein
Book Synopsis
£107.35
Dr Ludwig Reichert Lopodunum VII: Ladenburg Und Der Lobdengau
Book Synopsis
£70.30
