Search results for ""reaktion books""
Reaktion Books Nordic Model: Scandinavia Since 1945
For a sparsely populated region on the edge of Europe, Scandinavia has attracted an unusual degree of interest during the twentieth century. The successes and failures of the famous 'Scandinavian' or 'Nordic' model in politics and policy continue to generate debate. "The Nordic Model" advocates a government-funded welfare state, an egalitarian tax system and strict job regulation. In this book respected historian of Scandinavia Mary Hilson provides a welcome addition to the literature on the Nordic model by examining in detail its main historical influences, and the ways in which it has changed over time. Covering all five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, the book includes chapters on economic development, politics and government, foreign policy and the welfare state, as well as a more general account of the cultural meanings that have accrued to Scandinavia in the twentieth century. The implications of recent developments for the continued coherence of the region are assessed, in particular the European dimension, and the re-emergence of the Baltic Sea as a potential regional focus. This book will appeal to students of the region as well as to general readers with an interest in Scandinavia.
£20.92
Reaktion Books Film Music
Film and music belong together; classics like Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1927) and Mike Nichols' "The Graduate" (1967) are renowned for their brilliant soundtracks. But what exactly is film music? Does music act as an accompaniment to the film', or is film an illustration of the music, or are the two inseparable? In "Film Music", Peter Larsen traces the history of music in film and discusses central theoretical questions concerning its narrative and psychological functions. He looks in depth at classics such as Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep" (1946) and Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" (1959), as well as later international blockbusters and cult films including "American Grafitti" (1973), "Star Wars" (1977) and "Blade Runner" (1982). These case studies explore the role of music in the history of film, and also show how other films can be discussed in relationship to their music. "Film Music" offers a much-needed overview of how music functions in film and serves as a fascinating, accessible introduction to the analysis of film music. The book will serve as an important text for students of film, music and cultural disciplines, as well as the general reader with an interest in film and popular music.
£24.43
Reaktion Books Island at the End of the World: The Turbulent History of Easter Island
Famed for its breathtaking isolation, Easter Island was a verdant South-Sea idyll when a small canoeful of Polynesians arrived in c. AD 700. Centuries later the island's statues were famous throughout the world. This book presents a comprehensive history of Easter Island told by a writer who is intimately familiar with the island, its people and their extraordinary story. When voyaging in the South Pacific became far less widespread around 1500, Easter Islanders became stranded on their desert-like isle, and were forced to adapt to survive. The first European visitors, in 1722, encountered a people thriving in total isolation, surrounded by huge architectural platforms of fitted stones topped by hundreds of monolithic busts. Subsequent intruders brought trade, disease, violence, and the Easter Islanders adapted to this change, too, through cultural re-invention: new leaders, new rituals, new gods. Steven Roger Fischer relates the compelling history of this unique region: how wars, smallpox and the Great Death decimated the island, how Catholic missionaries arrived in 1866 to relieve the suffering of the dying people, and how a despotic Frenchman claimed the island for himself, but who was then killed by the remaining islanders a population of only 111. The author also examines the modern history of the island, its colonization and annexation by Chile, and its peaceful but insistent civil rights movement in 1964-65. Today, the population has increased, as has tourism of the island from 2,000 visitors in 1991 to 20,000 in 2001 and continues to be managed by the indigenous Rapanui people. Foreign interest in Easter Island has never been so keen, and this book is a much-needed history of this little-known but remarkable island.
£20.88
Reaktion Books Dismembering the Male: Men™s Bodies, Britain and the Great War Pb
That notions of femininity were seriously disrupted during the First World War has become obvious in recent years. But what happened to masculinity at the same time? Based on letters, diaries and oral histories, "Dismembering the Male" explores the impact of the 'war to end all wars' on the male body. Joanna Bourke argues convincingly that military experiences led to a greater sharing of gender identities between men of different classes and ages. She concludes that attempts to construct a new type of masculinity failed as the threat of another war, and with it the sacrifice of a new generation of men, intensified.
£25.26
Reaktion Books The Shape of Things: a Philosophy of Design
This title includes an introduction by Martin Pawley. This book presents for the first time in English an array of essays on design by the seminal media critic and philosopher Vilem Flusser. It puts forward the view that our future depends on design. In a series of insightful essays on such ordinary 'things' as wheels, carpets, pots, umbrellas and tents, Flusser emphasizes the interrelationships between art and science, theology and technology, and archaeology and architecture. Just as formal creativity has produced both weapons of destruction and great works of art, Flusser believed that the shape of things (and the designs behind them) represents both a threat and an opportunity for designers of the future.
£18.25
Reaktion Books Plunder
£22.50
Reaktion Books Englands Green
An exploration of how environmental concerns have shaped and reflected English national identity since the 1960s.
£20.00
Reaktion Books A Seditious and Sinister Tribe
The first history in English for over 100 years of the Crimean Tatars.
£27.00
Reaktion Books J.K. Huysmans
A concise, cogent biography of influential modernist writer J.-K. Huysmans.
£12.99
Reaktion Books The Teutonic Knights
£16.95
Reaktion Books Liqueur
A guide to the cultural history of liqueurs from a celebrated spirits journalist. The original recreational spirit, liqueurs travelled the Silk Road, awaited travellers at the Fountain of Youth, and traversed the globe from ancient times through the industrial revolution and beyond. In this thrilling exploration of liqueur's global history, Lesley Jacobs Solmonson describes how a bitter, medicinal elixir distilled by early alchemists developed into a sugar- and spice-fueled luxury for the rich before garnishing a variety of cocktails the world over. The book invites readers on a multi-faceted journey through culinary history, driven by humanity's ages-long desire for pleasure.
£12.99
Reaktion Books Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse’s experiments with form and color revolutionized the twentieth-century art world. In this concise critical biography, Kathryn Brown explores Matisse’s long career, beginning with his struggles as a student in Paris and culminating in his celebrated use of paper cutouts and stained glass in the last decade of his life. The book challenges various myths about Matisse and offers a fresh perspective on his creativity and legacy. Chapters explore the artist’s enthusiasm for fashion and cinema, his travels, personal ties, interest in African art, love of literature, and willingness to challenge audience expectations. Through close readings of Matisse’s works, Brown offers new insight into the artist’s friendships and battles with dealers, critics, collectors, and fellow artists.
£12.99
Reaktion Books Turtle
As ancient creatures that once shared the Earth with dinosaurs, turtles have played a crucial role in maintaining healthy terrestrial and marine ecosystems for more than one hundred million years. While it may not set records for speed on land, the turtle is exceptional at distance swimming and deep diving, and some are gifted with astounding longevity. In human thought, the animal's ties to creativity, wisdom, and warfare stretch back to the world's earliest written records. In Turtle, Louise M. Pryke celebrates the slow and unassuming manner of this doughty creature, which provides a living model of endurance and efficiency. In the increasingly fast-paced world of the twenty-first century, it has never been more important to consider the natural and cultural history of this remarkable animal.
£13.95
Reaktion Books Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy
Now available in paperback, Egyptomania takes us on a historical journey to unearth the Egypt of the imagination, a land of strange gods, mysterious magic, secret knowledge, monumental pyramids, enigmatic sphinxes and immense wealth. Egypt has always exerted a powerful attraction on the Western mind, and an array of figures have been drawn to the idea of Egypt. Even the practical-minded Napoleon dreamed of Egyptian glory and helped open the antique land to explorers. Ronald H. Fritze goes beyond art and architecture to reveal Egyptomania's impact on religion, philosophy, historical study, literature, travel, science and popular culture. All those who remain captivated by the ongoing phenomenon of Egyptomania will revel in the mysteries uncovered in this book.
£18.00
Reaktion Books Echoes of Valhalla: The Afterlife of the Eddas and Sagas
Tolkien's wizard Gandalf, Wagner's Valkyrie Brunnhilde, Marvel's superhero the Mighty Thor and the Vikings heading for Valhalla in Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song': these are just a few examples of how Icelandic medieval literature has shaped the human imagination during the past 150 years. Echoes of Valhalla is a unique account of modern adaptations of the Icelandic eddas (poems of Norse mythology) and sagas (ancient prose accounts of Viking history, voyages and battles). Jon Karl Helgason looks at comic books, plays, music and films, exploring reincarnations of the Nordic gods Thor and Odin and the saga characters Hallgerd Long-legs, Gunnar of Hlidarendi and Leif the Lucky, as well as the works of the medieval writer Snorri Sturluson. He looks at Scandinavian, British and American cases, as well as German, Italian and Japanese adaptions. Examples include the cartoonists Jack Kirby and Peter Madsen, playwrights Henrik Ibsen and Gordon Bottomley, travellers Frederick Metcalfe and Poul Vad, composers Richard Wagner and Edward Elgar, rock musicians Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and film directors Roy William Neill and Richard Fleischer.Echoes of Valhalla shows how disparate, age-old poems and prose from medieval rural Iceland have become a part of our shared cultural experience today - how the eddas and sagas themselves live on. The book will appeal to the wide audience interested in Viking mythology and history, as well as films, books, music, graphic novels and tv series such as Vikings.
£22.50
Reaktion Books The Space Within: Interior Experience as the Origin of Architecture
The architect Alvar Aalto once argued that what mattered in architecture was not what a building 'looks like' on the day it opens, but what it 'is like' to live in thirty years later. In this book Robert McCarter presents a persuasive defence of why and how interior spatial experience is the necessary starting point for design, and why the quality of that experience is the only appropriate means of evaluating a work of architecture after it is built.We live in an age dominated by images. We often feel we 'know' architecture and the places it makes, both old and new, through the photos of buildings we see in print and online, without ever inhabiting their spaces. McCarter argues that we need to counter our contemporary obsession with exterior views and forms, and makes a powerful case for the primacy of the interior experience in architecture.The Space Within explores how interior space has been integral to the development of Modern architecture from the late 1800s to today, and how generations of architects have engaged with interior space and its experience in their design processes.In doing so, they fundamentally transformed the traditional methods and goals of architectural composition. As McCarter argues, for many of the most recognized and respected architects practising today, the conception of the interior spatial experience continues to be the starting point for design. Through historical and current examples of architectural works he takes us through how this is done, and eloquently places us within the spaces.
£20.92
Reaktion Books Dirty Real
This is the tale of how Hollywood, inspired by the success of Easy Rider, sold a cycle of films as the new dirty real.
£17.95
Reaktion Books Pine
Reveals how pine trees have inspired and been utilized by humanity throughout history.
£15.95
Reaktion Books The Three Kingdoms of Korea
Sheds new light on the history and legacy of Korea's Three Kingdoms period.
£18.00
Reaktion Books In the Service of the Shogun
This biography traces William Adams's extraordinary journey from helmsman to influential adviser in feudal Japan.
£16.00
Reaktion Books Snowdrop
An exploration of the botanical and cultural history of the popular snowdrop.
£15.95
Reaktion Books Lucas Cranach
Unveils Lucas Cranach the Elder, an artist whose vision transcended personal brilliance.
£17.95
Reaktion Books Benjamin Franklin
An action-packed retelling of the life and work of the polymath and so-called First American, Benjamin Franklin. All Benjamin Franklin biographers face a major challenge: they must compete with their subject. In one of the greatest autobiographies in world literature, Franklin has already told his own story, and subsequent biographers have often taken Franklin at his word. In this exciting new account, Kevin J. Hayes takes a different approach. Hayes begins when Franklin is eighteen and stranded in London, describing how the collection of curiosities he viewed there fundamentally shaped Franklin's intellectual and personal outlook. Subsequent chapters take in Franklin's career as a printer, his scientific activities, his role as a colonial agent, his participation in the American Revolution, his service as a diplomat, and his participation in the Constitutional Convention. Containing much new information about Franklin's life and achievements, Hayes's critical biography situates Franklin within his literary and cultural milieu.
£14.38
Reaktion Books Photography and Archaeology
Through photographs we preserve the past, and looking for the past is the very job of the archaeologist. But what are we looking at in an archaeological photograph? Archaeological photography is often largely deserted, to be scanned with a forensic gaze, towards finding evidence of what once took place. At the same time, photographs of excavated sites and artefacts have revealed stunning ancient works, shot as works of art. In Photography and Archaeology, Frederick Bohrer examines some of history's most famous archaeological excavations, as well as lesser-known and previously unpublished finds, from the Mediterranean, Middle East, Asia, Europe and the Americas, and the ways these sites have been represented in photographs. Bohrer shows how the development of photography in the nineteenth century made archaeology available to a much wider audience, and he discusses how these images revealed the material traces of the past, as well as their meaning and use today. Spanning the dual histories of both photography and archaeology, the book makes evident how what we know of the archaeological past has always been related to how it has been photographically represented and circulated: in scholarly papers, popular accounts, scientific archives, museum catalogues and numerous other formats. Bohrer concludes that such images possess contending, if not mutually exclusive, properties. While photography seems to guarantee documentary objectivity, at the same time it also fundamentally alters the archaeological object, transforming it into a work of art. Along the way, he discusses archaeological examples and images by photographers including Maxime du Camp, Francis Frith, John Beazley Greene, Ernst Herzfeld and others, to more contemporary photographers such as Aaron Levin, Roger Wood and Marilyn Bridges. Beautifully illustrated with fine archaeological images, many published here for the first time, Photography and Archaeology will be of interest to archaeologists, art historians and photographers, as well as anyone concerned with, or captivated by, archaeology's ongoing engagement with the past.
£22.50
Reaktion Books Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art
What do they all mean - the lascivious ape, autophagic dragons, pot-bellied heads, harp-playing asses, arse-kissing priests and somersaulting jongleurs to be found protruding from the edges of medieval buildings and in the margins of illuminated manuscripts? Now available in a new hardback edition, Michael Camille's Image on the Edge explores that riotous realm of marginal art, so often explained away as mere decoration or zany doodles, where resistance to social constraints flourished. Medieval image-makers focused attention on the underside of society, the excluded and the ejected. Peasants, servants, prostitutes and beggars all found their place, along with knights and clerics, engaged in impudent antics in the margins of prayer-books or, as gargoyles, on the outsides of churches. Camille brings us to an understanding of how marginality functioned in medieval culture and shows us just how scandalous, subversive and amazing the art of the time could be.
£16.95
Reaktion Books Gin: A Global History
Mother's Milk or Blue Ruin, Dutch Courage or Cuckold's Comfort - the fanciful nicknames that gin has acquired only hint at its colourful story. The story begins with the aromatic juniper berry originally used by the Dutch to flavour the whisky-like genever. The drink then made its way to Britain, where cheap imitations laced with turpentine and other caustic fillers made it the drink of choice for poor eighteenth-century Londoners. Eventually replaced by the sweetened Old Tom style and then by London Dry, gin was introduced to the wider world by means of the British Empire, and during the Jazz Age became a mainstay of a new drinking culture: the cocktail. Today classic cocktails like the Gimlet and the Negroni are embraced by drinkers who enjoy a new breed of modern gins, and gin has reclaimed pride of place in the world of mixology. Gin: A Global History will attract both cocktail aficionados and lovers of food history as it chronicles gin's evolution from cheap liquor to modern alcoholic marvel.
£12.99
Reaktion Books Ice Cream: A Global History
@font-face { font-family: Times New Roman ; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times New Roman ; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: Times New Roman ; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Be it soft-serve, gelato, Indian kulfi or Israeli glida, some form of ice cream treat can found throughout the world in restaurants and home freezers. Though ice cream was once considered a food for the elite, it has evolved into one of the most popular mass-market products ever developed. In Ice Cream, Laura B. Weiss takes us on a vibrant trip through the history of ice cream from ancient China to modern-day Tokyo in order to tell the lively story of how this delicious indulgence became a global sensation. It's a tale populated with Chinese emperors, English kings, former slaves, women inventors, shrewd entrepreneurs, Italian immigrant hokey-pokey ice cream vendors and a gourmand American First Lady. Though Europeans came up with the first modern recipes, Americans have long claimed ice cream as their national dessert. Indeed, from the sundae to the cone, American entrepreneurs popularized the treat, developed the modern ice cream industry and gave the world the soda fountain - that nostalgic icon of American innocence and small town values. Weiss tells of the iced sherbets made in the Middle East and brought to Europe, the frozen confections made at the French court, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century sodas and sundaes with names such as 'Over the Top' and 'Purple Cow'. Today American brands can be found around the world, but vibrant ice cream cultures like Italy's continue to thrive, and more recent ones, like Japan's, flourish through unique variations. Weiss connects this much-loved food with its place in history, making this a book sure to be enjoyed by all who are beckoned by the siren song of the ice cream man.
£12.99
Reaktion Books Tea: A Global History
From oolong to sencha to chai, tea is one of the world's most popular beverages. Perhaps that is because it is a uniquely adaptable drink, consumed in many different varieties and ways by cultures across the globe and in many different settings, from the intricate traditions of the Japanese tea ceremony to the elegant tea-rooms of Britain to iced tea drunk on the verandas of the American Deep South. In Tea food historian Helen Saberi explores this rich and fascinating history. Saberi looks at the economic and social uses of tea, such as its use as a currency during the Tang dynasty; its role in American independence at the Boston Tea Party; afternoon tea drunk by the British in India; and the 1913 creation of a tea dance or The Dansant that combined tea with tango. Saberi also explores where and how tea is grown around the world and how customs and traditions surrounding the beverage have evolved from its legendary origins to its present-day popularity. Featuring vivid images as well as recipes from around the world, Tea is a refreshing and stimulating treat.
£12.99
Reaktion Books Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin, critic, essayist, translator, philosopher one of the twentieth century's most influential intellectuals continues to intrigue today. His work stimulates a profusion of responses in the form of new novels, operas, films and artworks, as well as a never-abating production of academic texts. In this new biography, the first to be written in over a decade, author Esther Leslie uses the recently published entirety of Benjamin's correspondence, drawing on his numerous diaries and autobiographical works, in order to provide a careful account of his circumstances and thoughts. Benjamin had many interests: he cherished childhood and its trappings; had a passion for the displacement and novelty of travel; toys; cities; trick-books; and, ships; all are given due attention as the author weaves Benjamin's wayward apperceptions into the narrative of a life lived. She follows Benjamin as he travels from Berlin to Capri, Ibiza, Riga, Moscow, Paris, and finally the Spanish border where he died in 1940. The author acknowledges Benjamin's thesis that personal histories can be traced only in the context of social milieus, economic forces, technological shifts, and historical events, and seamlessly interweaves biographical details with an accessible yet concentrated account of Benjamin's intellectual development, drawing a colourful portrait of a capacious intellect trapped in increasingly hostile circumstances. Leslie's meticulous attention to Benjamin's political, intellectual, geographical and cultural journeying challenges the populist depiction of the intellectual as a tragic and lonely figure. Walter Benjamin restores its subject to his proper place as an artistic combatant and a man desirous of and relishing experience.
£12.99
Reaktion Books Photography and Spirit
Can film capture what our eyes can't see? There are many examples both historical and contemporary of photographs of spirits or ghosts. These images have been both derided as hoaxes or, at the other extreme, held up as irrefutable proof of the otherworld. One of two books in Reaktion's new series "Exposures", "Photography and Spirit" examines these tantalizingly blurred images of phantoms, psychical emanations and religious apparitions. Drawing on eighty images taken between 1860 and today, John Harvey explores spirit photography from the various perspectives of religion, science and art. Some of the photographs were taken by scientists, others by amateur and commercial photographers or mediums, and still others by robotic surveillance devices. The diverse origins of spirit photographs have inspired a multiplicity of interpretations and engendered, in some cases, high levels of scepticism. Harvey's analysis probes the connections between the images, human imagination, larger cultural traditions and scientific thought. "Photography and Spirit" transforms what are often fringe objects of kitsch into revelatory artifacts of cultural history, drawing from them thought-provoking insights into the historical connections between the material and spiritual worlds, representations of grief, and human culture's enduring fascination with the supernatural. Uniquely blending art, science and human imagination, photo images of ethereal spirits blur the border between what is real and what is fantastic. "Photography and Spirit" challenges our preconceived notions and offers an intriguing new perspective on the nature of photography.
£20.25
Reaktion Books Triumph of Modernism: India's Artists and the Avant-garde 1922-1947
This richly illustrated book explores the contested history of art and nationalism in the tumultuous last decades of British rule in India. Western avant-garde art inspired a powerful weapon of resistance among India's artists in their struggle against colonial repression, and it is this complex interplay of Western modernism and Indian nationalism that is the core of this book. "The Triumph of Modernism" takes the surprisingly unremarked Bauhaus exhibition in Calcutta in 1922 as marking the arrival of European modernism in India. In four broad sections Partha Mitter examines the decline of oriental art and the rise of naturalism as well as that of modernism in the 1920s, and the relationship between primitivism and modernism in Indian art: with Mahatma Gandhi inspiring the Indian elite to discover the peasant, the people of the soil became portrayed by artists as noble savages. A distinct feminine voice also evolved through the rise of female artists. Finally, the author probes the ambivalent relationship between Indian nationalism and imperial patronage of the arts. With a fascinating array of art works, few of which have either been seen or published in the West, "The Triumph of Modernism" throws much light on a previously neglected strand of modern art and introduces the work of artists who are little known in Europe or America. A book that challenges the dominance of Western modernism, it will be illuminating not just to students and scholars of modernism and Indian art, but to a wide international audience that admires India's culture and history.
£35.00
Reaktion Books Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity
Over the last decade the popularity of Japanese food in the West has increased immeasurably, contributing to the continuing diversification of Western eating habits; but Japanese cuisine itself has evolved significantly since pre-modern times. This book explores the origins of Japanese cuisine as we know it today, investigating the transformations and developments food culture in Japan has undergone since the late nineteenth century. Among the key factors in the shift in Japanese eating habits were the dietary effects of imperialism, reforms in military catering and home cooking, wartime food management and the rise of urban gastronomy. Japan's patchwork of diverse regional cuisines became homogenized over time and was replaced by a set of foods and practices with which the majority of Japanese today ardently identify. This book demonstrates that Japanese cuisine as it is currently understood and valued, in spite of certain inevitable historical influences, is primarily a modern invention concocted in the midst of the turbulent events of the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Katarzyna J.Cwiertka is a recognized expert on the subject of Japanese cuisine and its modern history, and this book is a result of more than a decade of research. It also includes a section on the spread of Japanese food and restaurants in Western countries. "Modern Japanese Cuisine" will be of interest to the general reader interested in Japanese culture and society, as well as to a more specialized audience, such as scholars of Japan, anthropologists and food historians.
£30.00
Reaktion Books Contemporary Gothic
Gothic images pervade contemporary culture, from popular interior decorating programmes to news stories of vampire-obsessed killers. Darkness and unease have never been more fashionable, as the media repeatedly proclaims that Gothic is back', heralding its influence in film, music, style and popular culture. "Contemporary Gothic" seeks to analyse this trend. Why is Gothic perennially undergoing revival? What is its role in modern consumer culture? And is its popularity or its usefulness drawing to an end? "Contemporary Gothic" provides a sustained investigation of the role of Gothic in contemporary culture, from Buffy to Britart, theme pubs to advertising. It explores a wide range of recent material, including consumer products, fashion, fiction, film and art, within the context of a centuries-old literary and cultural tradition. Gothic walks a narrow line between comfort and outrage, mass popularity and cult appeal, the grotesque and the incorporeal, authentic self-expression and camp performance. Its very contradictions, Catherine Spooner argues, have made it so adaptable to contemporary concerns. Inventive and accessibly written, the book will appeal to students and academics researching Gothic across a wide range of disciplines, as well as general readers with an interest in the darker side of film, TV and fiction.
£12.95
Reaktion Books Animal Rights: Political and Social Pb
In the early twenty-first century animals are news. Parliamentary debates, protests against fox hunting and television programmes like Animal Hospital all focus on the way in which we treat animals and on what that says about our own humanity. As vegetarianism becomes ever more popular, and animal experimentation more controversial, it is time to trace the background to contemporary debates and to situate them in a broader historical context. Hilda Kean looks at the cultural and social role of animals from 1800 to the present at the way in which visual images and myths captured the popular imagination and encouraged sympathy for animals and outrage at their exploitation. From early campaigns against the beating of cattle and ill-treatment of horses to concern for dogs in war and cats in laboratories, she explores the relationship between popular images and public debate and action. She also illustrates how interest in animal rights and welfare was closely aligned with campaigns for political and social reform by feminists, radicals and socialists.
£20.88
Reaktion Books Chromophobia
The central argument of "Chromophobia" is that a chromophobic impulse - a fear of corruption or contamination through colour - lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought. This is apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge colour, either by making it the property of some 'foreign body' - the oriental, the feminine, the infantile, the vulgar, or the pathological - or by relegating it to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential, or the cosmetic. Chromophobia has been a cultural phenomenon since ancient Greek times; this book is concerned with forms of resistance to it. Writers have tended to look no further than the end of the nineteenth century. David Batchelor seeks to go beyond the limits of earlier studies, analysing the motivations behind chromophobia and considering the work of writers and artists who have been prepared to look at colour as a positive value. Exploring a wide range of imagery including Melville's "Great White Whale", Huxley's "Reflections on Mescaline", and Le Corbusier's "Journey to the East", Batchelor also discusses the use of colour in Pop, Minimal, and more recent art.
£15.15
Reaktion Books How the Spanish Empire Was Built: A 400 Year History
"Sixteenth-century Spain was small, poor, disunited and sparsely populated. Yet the Spaniards and their allies built the largest empire the world had ever seen. How did they achieve this? Felipe Fernández-Armesto and Manuel Lucena Giraldo argue that Spain’s engineers were critical to this venture. The Spanish invested in infrastructure to the advantage of local power brokers, enhancing the abilities of incumbent elites to grow wealthy on trade, and widening the arc of Spanish influence. Bringing to life stories of engineers, prospectors, soldiers and priests, the authors paint a vivid portrait of Spanish America in the age of conquest. This is a dazzling new history of the Spanish Empire, and a new understanding of empire itself, as a venture marked as much by collaboration as oppression."
£22.50
Reaktion Books Hieronymus Bosch: Visions and Nightmares
In his lifetime Hieronymus Bosch was already famous for his fantastic, unearthly creations. Today his name has become synonymous with the eerie, infernal and macabre. Bosch's enigmatic paintings have resulted in numerous interpretations; some tried to understand his visual worlds through esoteric means, while others attempted to decode them through psychology and psychoanalysis. Now in paperback, Hieronymus Bosch: Visions and Nightmares traces the career of a painter who worked for the highest aristocratic and courtly circles, and explains Bosch's paintings against the background of contemporary culture and society.
£14.95
Reaktion Books Living with the Dead: How We Care for the Deceased
Death is universal. It will meet us all. But it’s also a practical problem – what do we do with dead bodies? The Viestads live by a cemetery and are daily spectators of its routines, and their fascination with burials led them to dig deep to examine our relationship with the dead. Taking us on a journey through the world and the past, they explore how the deceased are honoured and cared for, cremated and buried. From archaeological sites in Spain, Israel and Russia to Ghana’s fantasy coffins and environmentally friendly burials, and from cremations without fire to turning our dearly departed’s ashes into diamonds, this empathetic and enthralling work is for anyone who knows their turn is coming, but who’d like a good book for the journey.
£16.00
Reaktion Books Dinner in Rome: A History of the World in One Meal
‘There is more history in a bowl of pasta than in the Colosseum,’ writes Andreas Viestad in Dinner in Rome. From the table of a classic Roman restaurant, Viestad takes us on a fascinating culinary exploration of the Eternal City, and global civilization. Food, he argues, is history’s secret driving force. From the starter of bread, Viestad traces the origins of wheat and its role in Rome’s rise and downfall; from his sorbet dessert he recounts how the hunger for sugar fuelled the slave trade. Viestad’s dinner may be local, but his story is universal. His ‘culinary archaeology’ is an entertaining, flavourful journey across the dinner table and time. You’ll never look at spaghetti carbonara the same way again.
£10.99
Reaktion Books The Pirates’ Code: The Laws and Life Aboard Ship
Pirates have long captured peoples’ imaginations with images of cutlass-wielding swashbucklers, eye-patches and buried treasure. But what was life really like on a pirate ship? Piracy was a risky, sometimes deadly occupation, and strict orders were essential for everyone’s survival. These ‘Laws’ were sets of rules that determined everything from how much each pirate earned from their plunder to compensation for injuries, to punishments and even the entertainment allowed on ships. These rules became known as the ‘Pirates’ Code’, which all pirates had to publicly swear by. Using primary sources such as eyewitness accounts, trial proceedings and maritime logs, this book explains how each one of the pirate codes was the key to pirates’ success in battle, on sea and on land.
£15.99
Reaktion Books Outrageous!: The Story of Section 28 and Britain’s Battle for LGBT Education
On 23 May 1988, Paul Baker sat down with his family to eat cake on his sixteenth birthday while The Six O’Clock News played in the background. But something was not quite right. There was muffled shouting – ‘Stop Section 28!’ – and a scuffle. The morning papers would announce: ‘Beeb Man Sits on Lesbian’. The next day Section 28 passed into law, forbidding local authorities from teaching ‘the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. It would send shockwaves through British society, silencing gay pupils and teachers while galvanizing mass protests and the formation of the LGBTQ+ rights groups OutRage! and Stonewall. Now available in paperback, Outrageous! tells the full story: the background to the Act, how the press fanned the flames and what politicians said during debates, how protestors fought back to bring about the repeal of the law in the 2000s, and its eventual legacy. Based on detailed research, interviews with key figures – including Ian McKellen, Michael Cashman and Angela Mason – and personal recollection, it is an impassioned, warm, often moving account of unthinkable prejudice enshrined within law, and of the power of community to overcome it.
£10.30
Reaktion Books The Greatest Shows on Earth: A History of the Circus
Now available in paperback, The Greatest Shows on Earth takes us from eighteenth-century hippodromes in Britain to intimate one-ring circuses in nineteenth-century Paris, where Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso became enchanted by aerialists and clowns. We meet P. T. Barnum, James Bailey and the enterprising Ringling Brothers, who created the golden age of American circuses. We explore contemporary transformations of the circus, from the whimsical Circus Oz in Australia to New York City’s Big Apple Circus. Circus people are central to the story: trick riders and tightrope walkers, sword swallowers and animal trainers, contortionists and clowns – these are the men and women who create the sensational, raucous, titillating and incomparable world of the circus. Beautifully illustrated, rich in historical detail and full of colourful anecdotes, Linda Simon’s vibrant history is as enchanting as a night at the big-top itself.
£20.00
Reaktion Books Astray: A History of Wandering
This book explores how, far from being limited to deviation from known pathways or desirable plans of action, wandering is an abundant source of meaning, as intimately involved in the history of our universe as it will be in the future of our planet. In ancient Australian Aboriginal cosmology, in works about the origins of democracy and surviving disasters in ancient Greece, in Eurasian steppe nomadic culture, in the lifeways of the Rom, in the movements of today’s refugees and in our attempts to preserve spaces of untracked online freedom, wandering is the means by which creativity and skills of adaptation are preserved in the interests of ongoing life. Astray is an enthralling look at belonging, and at notions of alienation and hope.
£16.00
Reaktion Books The English Actor: From Medieval to Modern
The English Actor charts the uniquely English approach to stagecraft. In thirty chapters, Peter Ackroyd describes, with superb narrative skill, the genesis of acting – deriving from the Church tradition of Mystery Plays – through the flourishing of the craft in the Renaissance to modern methods that followed the advent of film and television. The biographies of the most notable and celebrated actors are also explored, right up to the present day. In this book, Ackroyd gives us an original and superbly entertaining appraisal of how actors have acted – and how audiences have responded – since the medieval period, and what we mean by the ‘magic of the stage’.
£20.00
Reaktion Books Pazazz: The Impact and Resonance of White Clothing
From bridal gowns and White Parties to shrouds, an illuminating look at the power of our palest apparel. Pazazz examines the complex meanings of white clothing throughout history. Delicate and impractical, white cloth in the past was difficult to obtain, as well as to keep clean. It is a symbol of purity but also of class superiority, privilege, and the display of leisure. It represents the menace of the Ku Klux Clan, but also the transition of a bride to the married state. It can be the appropriate dress for mourning and shrouds. White lace is ethereal; straitjackets are tough stuff. White clothing has been a marker of innocence and simplicity for women, but also of calculated, high-maintenance fashion. And for men, white can be evidence of power. But for many, white is a startling absence of colour, the epitome of elegance. No matter how you view this lightest of hues and its place in your wardrobe, Pazazz sheds a bright white light on the complex nature of fair fashion. 'From bridal wear to the Ku Klux Klan, an exploration of the complex meanings of white clothing throughout history; sometimes a symbol of purity but also of class superiority, privilege and the display of leisure.' — Bookseller'A truly fascinating, even radiant book: a long-needed history of the no-color—and super-color—that can clothe us in virtue, cleanness, light. Edwards illuminates the ambiguity of this color of life and death, its difficult practicalities, and its luxuries and delights.' — John Harvey, author of The Story of Black'Edwards looks beyond white as the color of purity and virtuous cleanliness to reveal a deeper and sometimes sinister history of white clothing as a tool for moral and social distinction. From the supernatural to the authoritative, and from cradle to grave, white clothing enshrouds human life.' — Serena Dyer, lecturer in history of design and material culture, De Montfort University, and author of Material Lives: Women Makers and Consumer Culture in the Eighteenth Century'In these intriguing pages discover the power of white clothing, from the Athenian gods of fashion to Jackie Kennedy’s love for this 'most ceremonial color.'' — Peter McNeil, distinguished professor in design history, University of Technology Sydney
£20.00
Reaktion Books Alle Thyng Hath Tyme: Time and Medieval Life
Alle Thyng Hath Tyme recreates medieval people’s experience of time: as continuous and discontinuous, linear and cyclical, embracing Creation and Judgement, shrinking to ‘atoms’ or ‘droplets’ and extending to the silent spaces of eternity. They might measure time by natural phenomena such as sunrise and sunset, the motion of the stars or the progress of the seasons, even as the late medieval invention of the mechanical clock was making time-reckoning more precise. Negotiating these mixed and competing systems, medieval people gained a nuanced and expansive sense of time that rewards attention today.
£16.95
Reaktion Books Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland
In Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland, now available in paperback, Karl Schloegel presents a picture of a country which lies on Europe's borderland and in Russia's shadow. In recent years, Ukraine has been faced, along with Western Europe, with the political conundrum resulting from Russia's actions and the ongoing Information War. As well as exploring this confrontation, Schloegel provides detailed, fascinating historical portraits of a panoply of Ukraine's major cities: Lviv, Odessa, Czernowitz, Kiev, Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk and Yalta - cities whose often troubled and war-torn histories are as varied as the nationalities and cultures which have made them what they are today, survivors with very particular identities and aspirations. Schloegel feels the pulse of life in these cities, analysing their more recent pasts and their challenges for the future.
£12.95
Reaktion Books States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform, and America's Punishment System
Inspired by the George Floyd Rebellion, States of Incarceration examines the ongoing reconfiguration of mass incarceration as crucial for understanding how race, class and punishment shape America today. The rise of mass incarceration has coincided with a massive disinvestment in working-class communities, particularly communities of colour, and a commitment to criminalize poverty, addiction and interpersonal violence. As Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti argue, the present is a moment of transition and potential reform of incarceration and, by extension, the American justice system. States of Incarceration provides insights into the rise of mass incarceration and its recent history while focusing on the needs of campaigners struggling with the issues of police and prison abolition, as well as the challenges that lie ahead. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with these questions.
£15.95