Search results for ""reaktion books""

It is probably not surprising to learn that the modern craze for running is not new: our species has been running since we were able to stand upright. What may be surprising, however, are the many ways and reasons we have performed this painful, exhausting and yet exhilarating activity down the ages. In this original, humorous and almost improbable world history, Thor Gotaas brings us many unusual and curious stories showing the remarkable diversity of running, from earliest times to the immense popularity of running today at athletics meetings, world championships and Olympic games. Amongst the myriad characters the author describes are King Shulgi of Mesopotamia, who four millennia ago boasted about his ability to maintain high speeds while running long distances, and once claimed to have run from Nippur to Ur, a distance of not less than 160 kilometres, and Norwegian Vikings who exercised by running races against animals. There are also the little-known naked runs, backward runs, monk runs, snowshoe runs, the Incas' ingenious infrastructure of professional runners and the running culture of Native Americans. This unique book will be a revelation to everyone who reads it. It will appeal to all who wish to know more about why the ancients shared our love, and hatred, of this physically demanding yet spiritually rewarding pastime.

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No creature has been subject to such extremes of reverence and exploitation as the chicken. Hens have been venerated as cosmic creators and roosters as solar divinities. Many cultures have found the mysteries of birth, healing, death and resurrection encapsulated in the hen's egg. Yet today, most of us have nothing to do with chickens as living beings, although billions are consumed around the world every year. In Chicken Annie Potts introduces us to the vivid and astonishing world of Gallus gallus. The book traces the evolution of jungle fowl and the domestication of chickens by humans. It describes the ways in which chickens experience the world, form families and friendships, communicate with each other, play, bond and grieve. Chicken explores cultural practices like egg-rolling, the cockfight, alectromancy, wishbone-pulling and the chicken-swinging ritual of Kapparot; discovers depictions of chickenhood in ancient and modern art, literature and film; and also showcases bizarre supernatural chickens from around the world including the Basilisk, Kikimora and Pollio Maligno. Chicken concludes with a detailed analysis of the place of chickens in the world today, and a tribute to those who educate and advocate on behalf of these birds. Numerous beautiful illustrations show the many faces (and feathers and combs and tails) of Gallus, from wild roosters in the jungles of Southeast Asia to quirky Naked-Necks and majestic Malays. There are chickens painted by Chagall and Magritte, chickens made of hair-rollers, and chickens shaped like mountains. The reader of Chicken will encounter a multitude of intriguing facts and ideas, including why the largest predator ever to walk the earth is considered the ancestor of the modern chicken, how mother hens communicate with their chicks while they're still in the egg, why Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece required him to play a chicken, whether it's safe to take eggs on a sea-voyage, and how 'chicken therapy' can rejuvenate us all. This book will fascinate those already familiar with and devoted to the Gallus species, and it will open up a whole new gallinaceous world for admirers of the intelligent and passionate chicken.

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"Turkish Cinema: Identity, Distance and Belonging" is the first comprehensive study of the cinema of Turkey to be published in English. A recurring theme in the book is the Turkish quest for a modern identity in a world where borders, attitudes and people themselves are shifting and relocating. Turkey is a society striving to reconcile modern attitudes to morals with traditional values and centuries-old customs and its films reflect these contradictions. Against this background Gonul Donmez-Colin evaluates contemporary Turkish filmmakers, as well as the films of those who have left and those who have been exiled from Turkey. Themes of internal and external migration, as well as the voices of the 'denied identities' such as the Kurds are integral to the book. Gender and sexuality, taboo subjects that only the new generation of filmmakers dare to expose are also discussed homosexuality, lesbianism, honour killings, and incest are some of the ground-breaking points of the author's account. Written by a film scholar familiar with Turkish language and culture who has undertaken extensive research both in Turkey and its neighbouring countries, this is an indispensable reference for students of cinema and Middle Eastern studies, as well as the general reader interested in this dynamic, rich and thoroughly modern national cinema.

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Today Is Always Yesterday explores the historical constructs underlying contemporary art in Brazil. Michael Asbury, through his study of the South American nation's colonial and post-colonial condition, argues that art can not only illustrate history but activate it. The colours of the flag, a national emblem saturated with symbolism and which has become central to the culture wars of recent years, become devices to thematically structure the five chapters of the book. Asbury shows how artists have responded to cultural engagements and appropriations, and examines art's role in unravelling Brazil's foundational myths and its projected image as a racial melting pot. Richly illustrated, this book presents a compelling account of contemporary debates in Brazilian art.

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Photography and Korea is the first history of Korean photography for a Western readership. The book moves from the late nineteenth century, when Korean travellers brought Western photographic technology home from China, through to modern times. Jeehey Kim presents multiple visions of the country, including the divided North and South Korea as imagined through foreign eyes, Korean diasporas, important Korean artists, and local professional and vernacular photographers. Kim also addresses studio and institutional practices during the Japanese colonial period, how photography is interwoven with Korean political and cultural history, and the divergence of practices after the division of Korea. Featuring numerous striking images, this book is essential reading for all who are interested in the history of photography in Korea.

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Now available in paperback, this is the first work in English to tell the full story of Claude Cahun’s art and life. It both recounts her life and analyses her complex writings and images, making them available to a wide audience. Shaw’s account embeds Cahun’s work in the exciting milieu of Paris between the wars and follows it into the dangerous territory of the Nazi-occupied Isle of Jersey. Using letters and diaries, Shaw brings Cahun’s ideas and feelings to life and contributes to our understanding of photography, Surrealism and the histories of women artists and queer culture. This book includes a full range of illustrations by Cahun and other renowned photographers, as well as writings never before translated into English. Shaw’s book will appeal to art and photography lovers and scholars alike.

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In this major new account Ian McLean traces the history of Australian art, from colonial art practice to the search for a national art in the twentieth century. Two key themes structure the narrative: the transformation of a British art practice into an Australian one; and the troubled pursuit for the aesthetic means to claim an Indigenous heritage. As well as introducing the canonical artists and artworks of the Australian tradition, McLean assesses why certain artists have come to prominence, and why others have been neglected. In the process, he links the changing fortunes of artists to social and political developments both at home and abroad. With 170 superb illustrations, many in colour, this is essential reading for all interested in the history of Australian art.

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The spider spinning its web in a dark corner; wasps building a nest under a roof: there is hardly any part of the built environment that can’t be inhabited by nonhumans, and yet we are extremely selective as to which animals we allow in or keep out. This book considers many different animals, opening up new ways of thinking about architecture and the more-than-human. Looking closely at how animals produce spaces for themselves, Paul Dobraszczyk asks what we might require in order to design with animals and become more attuned to the other lifeforms that already use our structures. Animal Architecture is a provocative exploration of building in a world where humans and other animals are already entangled, whether we acknowledge it or not.

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In Counter-Texts, Kim Dhillon provides a much-needed critical reassessment of written language in contemporary art. Considering the politics, aesthetics and ethics of language, Dhillon explores artworks that use inscribed language, with a particular focus on works that challenge dominant narratives or which reveal, in visual form, the varied systems of oppression contained within words. Featuring many artists from diverse backgrounds, ranging from artists such as Serena Lee, Abbas Akhavan and Joi T. Arcand to Glenn Ligon, Brian Jungen and Susan Hiller, Dhillon rewrites the understanding of text in contemporary visual art. Counter-Texts explores how and why visual artists use written language, and interrogates the power held in words.

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When Kasimir Malevich’s Black Square was produced in 1915, no-one had ever seen anything like it before. And yet it does have precedents. In fact, over the previous 500 years, several painters, writers, philosophers, scientists and censors – each working independently towards an absolute statement of their own – alighted on the form of the black square or rectangle, as if for the first time. This book explores the resonances between Malevich’s Black Square and its precursors, showing how a ‘genealogical’ thread binds them together into an intriguing, and sometimes quirky, sequence of modulations. Andrew Spira’s book explores how each predecessor both ‘foreshadows’ Malevich’s work and, paradoxically, throws light on it, revealing layers of meaning that are often overlooked but which are as relevant today as ever.

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Facing China is an exploration of the portrait arts in China from the dynastic to the modern and contemporary, in painting, sculpture, photography and video. The book focuses on truth and memory in the portraiture process, from encounters between subject, portrait and artist, to broader familial, social and political arenas. It also examines the influence of location on portrait production, reception and display, from tombs, ancestral shrines, temples, gardens, and palace halls to public and private spaces. Featuring 150 fine illustrations, with 100 in colour, Facing China has much to say to specialists in the field as well as general readers interested in Chinese art.

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Blending architecture, design, and technology, a visual tour through futures past via the objects we have replaced, left behind, and forgotten. So-called extinct objects are those that were imagined but were never in use, or that existed but are now unused-superseded, unfashionable, or simply forgotten. Extinct gathers together an exceptional range of artists, curators, architects, critics, and academics, including Hal Foster, Barry Bergdoll, Deyan Sudjic, Tacita Dean, Emily Orr, Richard Wentworth, and many more. In eighty-five essays, contributors nominate "extinct" objects and address them in a series of short, vivid, sometimes personal accounts, speaking not only of obsolete technologies, but of other ways of thinking, making, and interacting with the world. Extinct is filled with curious, half-remembered objects, each one evoking a future that never came to pass. It is also a visual treat, full of interest and delight.

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In this historical tour de force, now available in B-format paperback, Roy Porter takes a critical look at representations of the body in health, disease and death in Britain from the mid-seventeenth to the twentieth century. Porter argues that great symbolic weight was attached to contrasting conceptions of the healthy and diseased body, and that such ideas were mapped onto antithetical notions of the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. With these images in mind, he explores aspects of being ill alongside the practice of medicine, paying special attention to self-presentations by physicians, surgeons and quacks, and to changes in practitioners' public identities over time. Porter also examines the wider symbolic meanings of disease and doctoring and the 'body politic'. Porter's book is packed with outrageous and amusing anecdotes portraying diseased bodies and medical practitioners alike.

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Over the last forty years, the landscape of the USA has been fundamentally transformed. It is partially visible in the ascendance of glittering coastal hubs for finance, infotech and the so-called `creative class’. But this is only the tip of an economic iceberg, the bulk of which lies in the darkness of the declining heartland or on the dimly lit fringe of sprawling cities. This is America’s hinterland. Drawing on his direct experience of recent popular unrest, Phil A. Neel provides a close-up and intimate view of this landscape in all its grim but captivating detail.

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The monochrome - a single-colour work of art - is highly ambiguous. For some it epitomizes purity, and is art reduced to its essence. For others it is just a stunt, the emperor's new clothes. Why are monochromes so admired, yet such an easy target of scorn? In this illuminating book Simon Morley unpacks the meanings of the monochrome as it developed internationally over the twentieth century to today. In doing so he explores more general questions such as how artists have understood what they make, how critics variously interpret it and how art is encountered by viewers.

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When is a work of art finished? Can it be complete in a mental sense? And who decides? In this highly original and wide-ranging study, Carel Blotkamp explores the concept and manifestations of 'the end' in art. From the idea of a mortal end to the notion of completeness, Blotkamp describes a fascinating array of historical facts and myths as well as novels on art and artists. He examines the value of the last works of artists, considering how a particular end came about and how that might affect our perception of the work; the difference in the styles of artists in old age; unfinished last works and those completed by another's hand; and the mythology inherent in the reception of last works, taking the last works of Raphael and Mondrian as prime examples. For students, artists and art enthusiasts looking for a new perspective on modern art, The End is the perfect place to start.

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In January 2006 a man tried to break Marcel Duchamp's Fountain sculpture with a small hammer. The sculpted foot of Michelangelo's David was damaged in 1991 by a purportedly mentally ill artist. Each such incident confronts us with the unsettling dynamic between destruction and art. Renowned art historian Dario Gamboni is the first to tackle this weighty issue in depth. Starting with the sweeping obliteration of architecture and art under the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, Gamboni investigates other instances of destruction around the globe, uncovering a surprisingly widespread phenomenon. As he demonstrates through analyses of nineteenth- and twentieth-century incidents in the U.S. and Europe, a complex relationship exists between the evolution of modern art and a long history of iconoclasm. Gamboni probes the concept of artists' rights, the power of political protest and the ways in which iconoclasm offers a unique interpretation of society's relationship to art and material culture. This compelling and thought-provoking study, now in B-format paperback and with a new preface by the author, forces us to rethink the ways in which we interact with art and its power to shock or subdue.

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In the history of the numinous there are few things more common than the belief in ghosts. From the earliest writings such as the Epic of Gilgamesh to today's ghost-hunting reality TV shows, ghosts have chilled the air of nearly every era and every culture in human history. In this book, now available in B-format paperback, Lisa Morton wrangles together history's most enduring ghosts into an entertaining and comprehensive look at what otherwise seems to always evade our eyes.

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Figs, fresh and dried, have become the fruit of celebrations and festivities throughout the Western world, and have been typically associated with Christmastime since the nineteenth century. In Figs: A Global History, David Sutton examines the festive and celebratory importance of figs in many countries by placing this luscious and festive fruit in its historical context. Beginning with an account of the strange biology of the fig - which is botanically not a fruit at all, but rather a cluster of ingrowing flowers - Sutton moves on to consider the Arabian origins of figs, including the possibility that the earliest fig seeds were transported from Yemen to Mesopotamia in the dung of donkeys. Proposing that the 'forbidden fruit' eaten by Adam and Eve was in fact a fig rather than an apple, this book explores the history of the fruit in fascinating detail, from the Crusaders to the wonderful fig festivals of the modern world. Including numerous recipes both sweet and savoury, and countless facts, myths and stories about the fig, such as the bizarre tale of the American fig-wasp, Figs is a fascinating account of this unique and delicious food.

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Line Let Loose is a sustained investigation of the evolution of scribbling, doodling and automatic drawing. Of these three forms of 'drawing', scribbling is the most basic: it is seen as playing a formative role in the drawings of both children and primates. Doodling, whilst still being a widespread phenomenon, is largely an adult preoccupation, a nomadic form of drawing typically produced during meetings of phone calls. Automatic drawing, on the other hand, even though those who engage in it are not necessarily trained artists, is a more dramatic event: the results of an absent-minded or trance-like state are sometimes astonishing. All three forms of drawing have, because of their amateur and spontaneous character, been adopted by modern artists seeking to escape from the constraints of their professional skills. David Maclagan shows that each of these marginal forms of drawing has its own history, which includes Spiritualism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Psychedelic Art. Referring to Klee, Pollock, Miro, Twombly and Sol Lewitt, as well as many lesser-known or anonymous artists, he traces the links between them and a pervasive notion of the spontaneous and 'unconscious' creation of forms in art. He suggests that the original novelty of these unconventional drawing processes has begun to wear off, and he explores their new situation in our modern digital culture.

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The art world has recently witnessed a surge of interest in contemporary Iranian art, but what is the background to Iran's vibrant art scene? This is the first comprehensive book on Iranian art and visual culture since the 1979 revolution. Divided into three parts - street, studio and exile - it covers official art sponsored by the Islamic Republic, the culture of avant-garde art created in the studio and its display in galleries and museums, and the art of the Iranian diaspora within the Western art scene. Grigor argues that these different areas of artistic production cannot be fully understood independently, for it is not despite censorship and exile that we are witnessing a boom in Iranian art today, as many have argued, but because of them. Moving between subversive and daring art produced in private to propaganda art made in the public view, this book offers an artistic mirror of the socio-political turmoil that has marked Iran's recent history.The author explores the world of galleries, museums, curators and art critics alongside a discussion of artists and their work, ranging from propaganda murals and martyrdom paraphernalia to avant-garde paintings and museum interiors. Grigor raises such topics as the cross-pollination of kitsch and avant-garde, the art market, state censorship, public - private domains, the political implications of art and artistic identity in exile. Providing an astute analysis of the workings of artistic production in relation to the institutions of power in the Islamic Republic, Contemporary Iranian Art is essential reading for anyone interested in art today and in Iran's recent history.

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Chronicles Plato's thought through the lens of his turbulent life.

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Sheds new light on the psychopathy, motivations and politics of murder by mail.

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An archaeological history of ancient Assyria, showcasing its superb buildings, art and literature.

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A historical perspective on the decline of globalization, illuminating the future path of the global economy and world politics.

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The Mongol Empire (c. 1200-1350) in many ways marks the beginning of the modern age, as well as globalization. While communications between the extremes of Eurasia existed prior to the Mongols, they were infrequent and often through intermediaries. The rise of the Mongol Empire changed everything: through their conquests the Mongols swept away dozens of empires and kingdoms and replaced them with the largest contiguous empire in history. While the Mongols were the most destructive force in the pre-modern world, the Pax Mongolica had stabilizing effects on the social, cultural and economic life of the inhabitants of the vast territory, allowing merchants and missionaries to traverse Eurasia. The conquests also set in motion other changes in warfare, medicine, food, culture and scientific knowledge. When Mongol power declined, it was replaced with over a dozen successors who retained elements of the Mongol Empire, but none of its unity. The Mongol Conquest in World History examines the many ways in which the conquests were a catalyst for change. The memory of the Empire fired the collective mind into far-reaching endeavours: the desire for luxury goods and spices that were once available launched Columbus' voyages; the Renaissance was inspired by the innovations in art that emerged from the Mongol Empire: China was unified for the first time in 300 years and the Islamic world doubled in size. This fascinating book offers comprehensive coverage of the entire empire, rather than a more regional approach, as well as providing a long view of the Mongol Empire's legacy. It will appeal to all those interested in this vast, epoch-making empire, as well as specialists in the field.

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Through the impact of shops like Habitat and IKEA, and of the countless glossy magazines, books and catalogues that focus on the concept of 'interior design', we have all become familiar with the idea of our homes and public interiors containing items of modern furniture and decor. Yet design historian and critic Penny Sparke shows that, unlike designed buildings and artefacts, the fixed idea of the 'modern interior' has only ever been an abstract and idealized concept, promoted through exhibitions, retail contexts and the mass media, and that it rarely exists in an absolute form. "The Modern Interior" provides a persuasive account of the forces, conflicts and debates that have underpinned the emergence of something we now effortlessly refer to as the 'modern interior'. Offering fascinating and eloquent insights into the work of international designers including C.R. Mackintosh, Adolf Loos, Josef Frank, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marcel Breuer, Lilly Reich, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Philippe Starck, and Charles and Ray Eames, Sparke focuses on the realities as well as concepts of the modern interior, whether in the hands of professional decorators and designers, or in those of its amateur inhabitants. By doing so, she deftly unravels the shift from Victorian to modern style, and demonstrates that the easy transition to the modern interior so frequently portrayed is little more than a mythology. "The Modern Interior" is essential reading for all students of modern design, architecture and culture, as well as anyone interested in why the interior spaces we inhabit look the way they do.

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"Icon and Devotion" offers the first extensive presentation in English of the making and meaning of Russian icons. The craft of icon-making is set into the context of forms of worship that emerged in the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-seventeenth century. Oleg Tarasov shows how icons have held a special place in Russian consciousness because they represented idealized images of Holy Russia. He also looks closely at how and why icons were made. Wonder-working saints and the leaders of such religious schisms as the Old Believers appear in these pages, which are illustrated with miniature paintings, lithographs and engravings never before published in the English-speaking world. By tracing the artistic vocabulary, techniques and working methods of icon painters, Tarasov shows how icons have been integral to the history of Russian art, influenced by folk and mainstream currents alike. As well as articulating the specifically Russian piety they invoke, he analyzes the significance of icons in the cultural life of modern Russia in the context of popular prints and poster design.

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A beautifully illustrated account of medieval falconry, both in the East and West.

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Everyone knows the characters described by Freud in his case histories: 'Dora', the 'Rat Man', the 'Wolf Man'. But what do we know of the people, the lives behind these famous pseudonyms: Ida Bauer, Ernst Lanzer, Sergius Pankejeff? Do we know the circumstances that led them to Freud's consulting-room, or how they fared - how they really fared - following their treatments? And what of those patients about whom Freud wrote nothing, or very little: Pauline Silberstein, who threw herself from the fourth floor of her analyst's building; Elfriede Hirschfeld, Freud's 'grand-patient' and 'chief tormentor'; the fashionable architect Karl Mayreder; the psychotic millionaire Carl Liebmann; and so many others? In an absorbing sequence of portraits, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen offers the stories of these men and women - some comic, many tragic, all of them deeply moving. In total, thirty-eight lives tell us as much about Freud's clinical practice as his celebrated case studies, revealing too a darker and more complex Freud than is usually portrayed: the doctor as his patients, their friends and their families saw him.

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Many human beings have considered the powers and the limits of human knowledge, but few have wondered about the power that the idea of knowledge has over us. Steven Connor's The Madness of Knowledge is the first book to investigate this emotional inner life of knowledge--the lusts, fantasies, dreams, and fears that the idea of knowing provokes. There are in-depth discussions of the imperious will to know, of Freud's epistemophilia (or love of knowledge), and the curiously insistent links between madness, magical thinking, and the desire for knowledge. Connor also probes secrets and revelations, quarreling and the history of quizzes and "general knowledge," charlatanry and pretension, both the violent disdain and the sanctification of the stupid, as well as the emotional investment in the spaces and places of knowledge, from the study to the library. In an age of artificial intelligence, alternative facts, and mistrust of truth, The Madness of Knowledge offers an opulent, enlarging, and sometimes unnerving psychopathology of intellectual life.

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Dedicated to art practices that mobilize the model of the archive, this book demonstrates the ways in which such 'archival artworks' probe the possibilities of what art is and what it can do. Through a variety of media, methodologies and perspectives, the artists surveyed here also challenge the principles on which the notions of organization, evidence and documentation are built. The earliest examples of the modern archival artwork were made in the 1930s, but it is since the 1960s that archival principles have increasingly been used by artists to inform, structure and shape their works. This includes practices that consist of archive construction, archaeological investigation, record keeping or the use of archived materials; however, they also interrogate the principles, claims and effects of the archive. Staging the Archive shows how artists read the concept of the archive against the grain, questioning not only what the archive is and can be but what materials, images or ideas can be archived. In this book Ernst van Alphen examines these archival artists and artworks in detail, setting them within their social, political and aesthetic contexts. Exploring the work of Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Broodthaers, Christian Boltanski, Annette Messager, Fiona Tan and Sophie Calle, among others, this book reveals how modern and contemporary artists have used and contested the notion of the archive to establish new relationships to history, information and data.

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From swimming alongside our kayaks, canoes, coracles and boats to lurking alone in the shadowy waters of remote seas, seals have long interacted with humans and played a part in our history. Seal by Victoria Dickenson explores the natural and cultural history of an animal that has piqued and delighted human interest since ancient times, from their role in Roman spectacles to their frequent inhabitation of animal rescue centers today.Seals, sea lions, fur seals and walruses are so distinctive that biologists have classified them as members of a single order, the Pinnipedia, yet our relationship with each distinctive seal species varies. We have for centuries hunted some seals for their skin, oil and meat. In the twentieth- and twenty-first century the hunt has become a focus for global protest, and the white-furred baby seal has evolved into one of the most powerful symbols for animal welfare. Some species, like the Mediterranean monk seal, are among the most endangered mammals in the world. Others, who live far from human habitation, number in the millions.The seals living closer to our societies have become wrapped in our myths and legends: there are tales of seals who have sought out human society, following the sound of children's voices, or the music of the pipe and flute; and there are darker stories of selkies and other seal-like creatures that take on human shape for purposes of both good and ill. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, Seal offers an immersive view of a much-loved, storied creature.

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A sweeping journey through the ebbs and flows of Pakistan's history.

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A unique perspective on Chinese food history through seven iconic meals.

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A visual history of the artists, fans, and fanzines of widely influential British punk. Zerox Machine is an immersive journey through the vibrant history of British punk and its associated fanzines from 1976 to 1988. Drawing on an extensive range of previously unpublished materials sourced from private collections across the United Kingdom, Matthew Worley describes and analyses this transformative era, providing an intimate glimpse into the hopes and anxieties that shaped a generation. Far more than a showcase of covers, Zerox Machine examines the fanzines themselves, offering a rich tapestry of firsthand accounts, personal stories, and subcultural reflections. With meticulous research and insightful analysis, this book captures the spirit and essence of British youth culture, shedding new light on a pivotal movement in music history and offering a unique alternative history of Britain in the 1970s and '80s. 'Clear headed and beautifully written, this book is an overview of fanzines

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Explores the history and symbolism of griffins across cultures, folklore, magic and art.

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Unveils the complex sex lives of libertine women in eighteenth-century London.

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For many of us, ruins are alluring, puzzling and endlessly fascinating: this elegant book seeks to explore why. What is it that makes us suspicious of works or histories that are too smooth, too continuous? Is it that urban experience is inherently discontinuous and fragmented, or that the only truths we can believe are partial ones? Ruins and Fragments guides us through ancient and modern worlds, sharing tales of loss, recovery and rediscovery. Beginning with ancient fragments, this book recounts how later history has recuperated, restored and exhibited them, and even how ruins have been found in unlikely places - such as a Hellenistic fragment from Pergamon located in remote Nottinghamshire. It considers modernist architecture's fragmentary effects, and how concrete made some buildings look prematurely ruined. It also explores architecture that has worked with ruins, from the Castelvecchio in Verona to the reconstruction of the Neues Museum in Berlin. In literature, from T. S. Eliot to Laurence Sterne, writers revel in fragments and create anew from literary rubble.Some people deliberately construct or destroy to create ruin, Gordon Matta-Clark attacking buildings, for example, or dispossessed youth scribbling graffiti. Ultimately, destruction is balanced by attempts at reconstruction. Whether focusing on ancient or modern remnants, literature or the visual arts, Ruins and Fragments is poetic without being sentimental. Far from 'ruin lust', this book seeks to explore fragments without fetishizing them. In doing so it offers new ways of understanding the history of modernity, while delighting in our perception of the world as a puzzle and the ways in which we can construct new forms of meaning.

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A profusely illustrated history of the diplomatic embassy, from antiquity to today.

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The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and longest-lasting empires in history. In this powerful and complex empire, the production and consumption of food reflected the lives of people from sultans to soldiers. Food bound people of different classes and background together, defining identity and serving symbolic functions in the social, religious, political and military spheres. Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine examines the foodways of the Ottoman Empire as they changed and evolved over more than five centuries. The book starts with an overview of the earlier culinary traditions in which Ottoman cuisine was rooted, such as those of the Central Asian Turks, Abbasids, Seljuks and Byzantines, and goes on to focus on diverse aspects of this rich culinary culture, including etiquette, cooks, restaurants, military food, food laws and food trade. This meticulously researched account draws on more than six hundred primary and secondary sources, ranging from archive documents to poetry, and includes over one hundred illustrations. It is a fresh and lively insight into an empire that until recent decades has been sidelined or viewed through orientalist spectacles. Readers interested in food history and Ottoman history will enjoy this beautiful volume.

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If it is true that great art comes from great suffering, then the art of Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 - 81) must be truly great indeed. The second of seven children, he developed epilepsy and was ruled over by a drunken, violent father. From this harsh childhood, to his brief forays in the army, through the years of exile and imprisonment in Siberia, Dostoevsky's troubled life shaped his character and art in profound ways. Robert Bird traces Dostoevsky's path from a political revolutionary to one who fought his battles through the printed word. Bird describes how Dostoevsky came into contact with the poor and oppressed who attended the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor in Moscow, where his father practiced medicine, and how Dostoevsky was to champion the downtrodden throughout his career. He outlines the years Dostoevsky spent in prison after his arrest and near-execution in 1849, and how these experiences, in combination with his difficult childhood, epileptic seizures, religious and political views, contributed to the writing of acclaimed novels such as Crime and Punishment (1867). The author also describes how Dostoevsky's craving for social justice and 'quest for form' spurred his literary achievements. Writers such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and Virginia Wolfe admired and praised Dostoevsky, and he is often acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent psychologists in literature - the parricide in The Brothers Karamazov even attracted the attention of Sigmund Freud. Fyodor Dostoevsky will fascinate all lovers of literature and Russian history.

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Gravenstein, Coe's Golden Drop, Cox's Orange Pippin: the names sound like something from Tolkien or the ingredients of a magic potion. But as befits their magical appellations, apples have transfixed and beguiled humans for thousands of years. Erika Janik explores the importance of a fruit, born in the mountains of Kazakhstan, which has became a favourite almost everywhere. Apples have played their part in starting the Trojan War, the discovery of gravity and the settling of America, and you can even use them to predict the future. Apples also make for good drinking, and Janik relates the history of cider in Europe and America. From the Garden of Eden and the wicked queen's apple in the story of Snow White to Johnny Appleseed and the Apple computer, apples have been a universal source of sustenance, health and legend from ancient times to the present. Food and history lovers will devour this surprising history of one of the world's most loved and prolific fruits.

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Renowned for his contribution to the development of the motion picture, Eadweard Muybridge was a pioneering photographer. Alongside his remarkable photographic achievements, his personal life was riddled with melodrama, including a near-fatal stagecoach accident, a betrayal and a murder trial. Marta Braun's new biography traces the sensational events of Muybridge's life against his personal reinventions as artist, photographer, high-minded researcher and showman. Muybridge's opportunity in photography came in the 1870s, when his skills were enlisted by a racehorse breeder to prove the 'unsupported motion controversy' - the theory that during a horse's stride, there was a moment when all four of its legs left the ground. The resulting collection 'Motion Studies' gave Muybridge a taste for the scope of his trade; photography could be more than landscapes, and he went on to apply it to the realm of scientific research. He invented the 'zoopraxiscope' as a means of capturing movement too quick for the human eye to record.Simulating motion through a series of stills, his pioneering use of sequence photography served as a forerunner to the introduction of cinematography in the 1890s, and his work has gone on to influence the worlds of art, science and photography. Featuring newly discovered information about the photographer and his masterpiece Animal Locomotion this illuminating study examines the character of the man whose influence has resounded through generations. In Eadweard Muybridge, Braun considers why he was and is so central to the history of art, science, photography and motion pictures.

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Thin crust, Chicago deep-dish or Sicilian; there are countless ways to create the dish called pizza, and the debate over the best way to cook it never ends. Carol Helstosky documents the fascinating history and cultural life of this chameleon-like food in "Pizza". Originally a food for the poor in eighteenth-century Naples, pizza is a source of national and regional pride in Italy as well as of cultural identity. In the twentieth century, pizza followed Italian immigrants to America, where it became the nation's most popular dish and fuelled the rise of successful fast-food corporations such as Pizza Hut and Domino's. Pizza has been adapted to local cuisines and has become a metaphor for cultural exchanges. From the world's largest pizza, which was 37.4 metres (122 ft 8 in) in diameter, to the most expensive sprinkled with edible 24-carat gold shavings pizza is one of the world's best-loved and most adaptable dishes. "Pizza" also features several tasty recipes and a wealth of illustrations. Whether you love sausage and onions on your pizza or just unadorned cheese, "Pizza" will satisfy even the pickiest of readers.

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Ludwig Wittgenstein, writes noted scholar Edward Kanterian, was a philosopher's philosopher'. He was one of the founders of modern analytic philosophy and is regarded as the greatest philosophical genius since Immanuel Kant. In this book, Kanterian traces the complex relationship between the philosopher's life, his work and his time. The author describes Wittgenstein's eventful life, his numerous trips, and his friendships with some of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century, including Bertrand Russell, John Maynard Keynes, George Edward Moore and Gilbert Royle. Kanterian also presents a careful account of Wittgenstein's notoriously abstract philosophical works, from his early masterpiece Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) to the Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously in 1953. The author makes Wittgenstein's work comprehensible to lay readers, as well as offering original interpretations that further illuminate the writings. Emerging from the highly sophisticated Viennese upper class at the turn of the last century, Wittgenstein had intellectual and artistic aspirations going far beyond theoretical philosophy. In particular he took great interest in art and music, and during his entire lifetime was deeply tormented by ethical and religious questions. There is something about Wittgenstein's life and persona, the author believes, that captivates our collective imagination and seems to offer answers to the ethical problems of our own time. Kanterian sees Wittgenstein's life as the focal point of important conflicts and tensions of an entire age. A readable, concise account that uses many telling quotations from the philosopher's own writings, as well as numerous illustrations, this book will appeal to scholars and students of Wittgenstein, and the broad audience for introductions to philosophy.

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Whales are the largest animals ever to have lived on the earth: the longest recorded was over 33 metres long, the heaviest more than 171,000 kgs; a large Blue Whale's tongue alone can weigh more than an elephant. Whales can stay underwater for more than an hour, some speculate that they can live for up to 200 years, and they are among the most intelligent animals known to humanity. "Whale" recounts the evolutionary and ecological background, as well as the cultural history, of these extraordinary mammals, long persecuted and now celebrated throughout the world. From the tales of Jonah and Brendan the Navigator to Moby Dick and recent discoveries of cetacean songs and culture, Joe Roman looks at the role of the whale in human history, mythology, art, literature, commerce and science. Illustrated with Stone Age carvings, medieval broadsheets and colour underwater photographs, "Whale" shows how our perception of these animals has changed over the centuries: a hundred years ago, a stranded whale was usually greeted with flensing knives; now people bring boats and harnesses to return a wayward creature to the sea. Written by an author with vast experience of the subject, "Whale" will appeal to all those interested in whales and the conservation of the oceans, as well as anyone studying cultural history and the natural sciences.

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