Search results for ""yale university press""

Although perspective has long been considered one of the essential developments of Renaissance painting, this provocative new book shifts the usual narrative back centuries, showing that medieval sculptors were already employing knowledge of optical science, geometry, and theories of vision in shaping the beholder’s experience of their work. Meticulous visual analysis is paired with close readings of medieval texts in examining a series of important relief sculptures from northern and central Italy dating from the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, including the impressive sculptural programs at the cathedrals of Modena and Ferrara, and the pulpits by Giovanni and Nicola Pisano at Pisa and Pistoia. Demonstrating that medieval sculptors orchestrated the reception of their intended religious and political messages through the careful manipulation of points of view and architectural space, Christopher R. Lakey argues that medieval practice was well informed by visual theory and that the concepts that led to the codification of linear perspective by Renaissance painters had in fact been in use by sculptors for hundreds of years.

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An urgent and timely story of the contentious politics of incorporating environmental justice into global climate change policy Winner of the Harold and Margaret Sprout Award, sponsored by the International Studies Association “Should be required reading for the most committed Green New Dealers and their opponents alike.”—Liam Denning, Bloomberg Although the science of climate change is clear, policy decisions about how to respond to its effects remain contentious. Even when such decisions claim to be guided by objective knowledge, they are made and implemented through political institutions and relationships—and all the competing interests and power struggles that this implies. Michael Méndez tells a timely story of people, place, and power in the context of climate change and inequality. He explores the perspectives and influence that low-income people of color bring to their advocacy work on climate change. In California, activist groups have galvanized behind issues such as air pollution, poverty alleviation, and green jobs to advance equitable climate solutions at the local, state, and global levels. Arguing that environmental protection and improving public health are inextricably linked, Mendez contends that we must incorporate local knowledge, culture, and history into policymaking to fully address the global complexities of climate change and the real threats facing our local communities.

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During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Boston was both a colonial capital and the third most important port in the British empire, trailing only London and Bristol. Boston was also an independent entity that pursued its own interests and articulated its own identity while selectively appropriating British culture and fashion. This revelatory book examines period dwellings, gravestones, furniture, textiles, ceramics, and silver, revealing through material culture how the inhabitants of Boston were colonial, provincial, metropolitan, and global, all at the same time. Edward S. Cooke, Jr.’s detailed account of materials and furnishing practices demonstrates that Bostonians actively filtered ideas and goods from a variety of sources, combined them with local materials and preferences, and constructed a distinct sense of local identity, a process of hybridization that, the author argues, exhibited a conscious desire to shape a culture as a means to resist a distant, dominant power.Published in association with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

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Few terms in political theory are as overused, and yet as under-theorized, as constitutional revolution. In this book, Gary Jacobsohn and Yaniv Roznai argue that the most widely accepted accounts of constitutional transformation, such as those found in the work of Hans Kelsen, Hannah Arendt, and Bruce Ackerman, fail adequately to explain radical change. For example, a “constitutional moment” may or may not accompany the onset of a constitutional revolution. The consolidation of revolutionary aspirations may take place over an extended period. The “moment” may have been under way for decades—or there may be no such moment at all. On the other hand, seemingly radical breaks in a constitutional regime actually may bring very little change in constitutional practice and identity. Constructing a clarifying lens for comprehending the many ways in which constitutional revolutions occur, the authors seek to capture the essence of what happens when constitutional paradigms change.

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An essential exploration of how authoritarian regimes operate at the local level “Gorlizki and Khlevniuk have produced an impressive study. . . . A must for scholars of Stalinism and Soviet politics more generally.”—Gerald Easter, Russian Review How do local leaders govern in a large dictatorship? What resources do they draw on? Building on recent innovations in the theory of dictatorship, Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg Khlevniuk examine these questions by looking at one of the most important authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century. They show how Soviet regional leaders, lacking Stalin’s direct access to the means of repression, resorted to alternative strategies—especially through political exclusion and control of information—to build the local networks they needed to rule. The authors suggest that making sense of these networks is key to understanding how the dictatorship as a whole operated. Analytical scrutiny provides important clues to how the institutions of dictatorship changed over time, how conflicts within it were resolved, and how certain central policies, such as on the management of ethnic diversity, were implemented.

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An enthralling appreciation of the monumentally gifted popular artist and cultural icon who challenged Hollywood’s standards of beauty and glamour Barbra Streisand has been called the “most successful...talented performer of her generation” by Vanity Fair, and her voice, said pianist Glenn Gould, is “one of the natural wonders of the age.” Streisand scaled the heights of entertainment—from a popular vocalist to a first-rank Broadway star in Funny Girl to an Oscar-winning actress to a producer and director. But she has also become a cultural icon who has transcended show business. To achieve her success, Brooklyn-born Streisand had to overcome tremendous odds, not the least of which was her Jewishness. Dismissed, insulted, even reviled when she embarked on a show business career for acting too Jewish and looking too Jewish, she brilliantly converted her Jewishness into a metaphor for outsiderness that would eventually make her the avenger for anyone who felt marginalized and powerless. Neal Gabler examines Streisand’s life and career through this prism of otherness—a Jew in a gentile world, a self-proclaimed homely girl in a world of glamour, a kooky girl in a world of convention—and shows how central it was to Streisand’s triumph as one of the voices of her age.

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Fifty years after the Moon landing, a new history of the space race explores the lives of both Soviet and American engineers At the dawn of the space age, technological breakthroughs in Earth orbit flight were both breathtaking feats of ingenuity and disturbances to a delicate global balance of power. In this short book, aerospace historian Roger D. Launius concisely and engagingly explores the driving force of this era: the race to the Moon. Beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957 and closing with the end of the Apollo program in 1972, Launius examines how early space exploration blurred the lines between military and civilian activities, and how key actions led to space firsts as well as crushing failures. Launius places American and Soviet programs on equal footing—following American aerospace engineers Wernher von Braun and Robert Gilruth, their Soviet counterparts Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov—to highlight key actions that led to various successes, failures, and ultimately the American Moon landing.

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This book celebrates 40 years of work by Pierre Droulers (b. 1951), a pioneer of contemporary dance and choreographer of more than 30 works. A key figure in France and Belgium since the 1970s, Droulers was one of the first students to graduate from the Mundra School. In tune with the zeitgeist since the beginning of his career, Droulers has collaborated with singular and forward-thinking musicians, from jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy and beat poet Brion Gysin to Isreali group Minimal Compact and performance artist Winston Tong. In later years Droulers has developed fruitful artistic exchanges with visual artists, particularly Michel François and Ann Veronica Janssens. Drawing on archives for images and text, along with personal recollections and quotations, this monograph presents a three-dimensional narrative: the collisions of faces, landscapes, and words revealing Droulers’s artistic world as one of obsessions and fantasies, of light and darkness. Distributed for Mercatorfonds

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The rise of democratic ideals and the burgeoning middle class of the late 19th and early 20th centuries precipitated an important surge in the prevalence of music in everyday life. Café concerts, dances, and operas all flourished in major cities across Europe as more people wanted access to performances and musical education. The approximately 150 artworks included in this handsomely illustrated volume, by major artists including Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, James McNeill Whistler, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pierre Bonnard, trace the growing presence of music in painting, and include depictions of public performances—brass bands, circuses, cabarets, orchestras, operas, festivals–-as well as more intimate scenes featuring parlor music and music lessons. Distributed for Editions Hazan, ParisExhibition Schedule:Musée des impressionnismes Giverny (03/24/17-07/02/17)

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The first comprehensive overview of Jasper Johns’s work in an innovative medium that the artist has singlehandedly redefined over the course of four decades Jasper Johns (b. 1930) is arguably the most important living American artist, and his work is central to any history of postwar art. With extensive new scholarship based on original research and interviews with the artist, Jasper Johns: Catalogue Raisonné of Monotypes provides the definitive account of his groundbreaking work in an intrinsically subversive medium situated between painting, drawing, and printmaking. Susan Dackerman and Jennifer L. Roberts examine Johns’s innovative use of the printing press to create alterity, overturning monotype’s long-standing reputation for subjectivity. Featured in this volume are all 143 monotypes Johns made between 1954 and June 2015, most of them published here for the first time. Each work is generously illustrated in color and accompanied by complete cataloguing information, including technical specifications, provenance, exhibition history, and bibliographic references.

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A world-renowned media and cultural critic offers an insightful analysis of serial TV drama and the modern art of the small screen Television and TV viewing are not what they once were—and that’s a good thing, according to award-winning author and critic Clive James. Since serving as television columnist for the London Observer from 1972 to 1982, James has witnessed a radical change in content, format, and programming, and in the very manner in which TV is watched. Here he examines this unique cultural revolution, providing a brilliant, eminently entertaining analysis of many of the medium’s most notable twenty-first-century accomplishments and their not always subtle impact on modern society—including such acclaimed serial dramas as Breaking Bad, The West Wing, Mad Men, and The Sopranos, as well as the comedy 30 Rock. With intelligence and wit, James explores a television landscape expanded by cable and broadband and profoundly altered by the advent of Netflix, Amazon, and other “cord-cutting” platforms that have helped to usher in a golden age of unabashed binge-watching.

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Arguably the most important living artist in America, Jasper Johns (b. 1930) has been a leading advocate of drawing as an artistic genre in its own right, not just a preparatory medium for other works. This catalogue brings together 41 of Johns’s drawings, spanning more than 60 years of his illustrious career and, beginning in 1954, the origin of his mature practice. It encompasses his most famous recurring motifs, including flags, targets, and numbers, and an essay by David Breslin contextualizes this reiterative aspect of Johns’s career. Exquisite reproductions and large-scale details reveal the touch and process of this master draftsman, imparting to the reader a feeling of being in close contact with the artist himself. As this intimate book shows, Johns’s art, at once simple and enigmatic, is above all a meditation on the world around him, a constant investigation of what he calls “the condition of being here.”Distributed for The Menil CollectionExhibition Schedule:The Menil Collection, Houston (11/03/18–01/27/19)

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In this compelling publication, two masters come face-to-face when the works of Edvard Munch are juxtaposed against Gustave Flaubert’s groundbreaking novel Madame Bovary. Munch’s art is presented in stills taken from an elaborate video installation, Madame B (2014), created by Michelle Williams Gamaker and the internationally acclaimed cultural theorist, video artist, and curator Mieke Bal. Emma and Edvard Looking Sideways: Loneliness and the Cinematic explores the filmic aspect of Munch’s art by combining contemporary art theory with Bal’s own idiosyncratic way of looking at art – directly and closely. The reader can reflect upon how we view each other in social situations and question what happens when we are denied visual dialogue. Distributed for MercatorfondsExhibition Schedule:Munch Museum, Oslo (02/04/17–04/17/17)

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An intimate look at Elie Wiesel, author of the seminal Holocaust memoir Night and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, Biography category “An indispensable touchstone.”—Julia M. Klein, Forward As an orphaned survivor and witness to the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) compelled the world to confront the Holocaust with his searing memoir Night. How did this soft-spoken man from a small Carpathian town become such an influential figure on the world stage? Drawing on Wiesel’s prodigious literary output and interviews with his family, friends, scholars, and critics, Joseph Berger seeks to answer this question. Berger explores Wiesel’s Hasidic childhood in Sighet, his postwar years spent rebuilding his life from the ashes in France, his transformation into a Parisian intellectual, his failed attempts at romance, his years scraping together a living in America as a journalist, his decision to marry and have a child, his emergence as a spokesperson for Holocaust survivors and persecuted peoples throughout the world, his lifelong devotion to the state of Israel, and his difficult final years. Through this penetrating portrait we come to know intimately the man the Norwegian Nobel Committee called “a messenger to mankind.”

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In this thought-provoking book, preeminent scholar Stephen Houston turns his attention to the crucial role of young males in Classic Maya society, drawing on evidence from art, writing, and material culture. The Gifted Passage establishes that adolescent men in Maya art were the subjects and makers of hieroglyphics, painted ceramics, and murals, in works that helped to shape and reflect masculinity in Maya civilization. The political volatility of the Classic Maya period gave male adolescents valuable status as potential heirs, and many of the most precious surviving ceramics likely celebrated their coming-of-age rituals. The ardent hope was that youths would grow into effective kings and noblemen, capable of leadership in battle and service in royal courts. Aiming to shift mainstream conceptions of the Maya, Houston argues that adolescent men were not simply present in images and texts, but central to both.

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“For readers in search of a thoughtful, thorough, and approachable survey of the history of religion, this book is an excellent place to start.”—Booklist Written for those with faith and for those without—and especially for younger readers—A Little History of Religion sweeps us through the story of religion in our world, from the dawn of religious belief to the present. An emphathetic yet discerning guide to the enduring importance of faith, Richard Holloway introduces us to the history and beliefs of the major world religions—Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism. He also explores where religious belief comes from; the search for meaning through the ages; how differences in belief sometimes lead to hostility and violence; what is a sect and what is a cult; and much more. Throughout, Holloway encourages curiosity and tolerance, accentuates nuance and mystery, and calmly restores a sense of the value of faith.

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This intriguing book tells the story of England’s great medieval Angevin dynasty in an entirely new way. Departing from the usual king-centric narrative, Richard Huscroft instead centers each of his chapters on the experiences of a particular man or woman who contributed to the broad sweep of events. Whether noble and brave or flawed and fallible, each participant was struggling to survive in the face of uncontrollable forces. Princes, princesses, priests, heroes, relatives, friends, and others—some well known and others obscure—all were embroiled in the drama of historic events. Under Henry II and his sons Richard I (the Lionheart) and John, the empire rose to encompass much of the British Isles and the greater part of modern France, yet it survived a mere fifty years. Huscroft deftly weaves together the stories of individual lives to illuminate the key themes of this exciting and formative era.

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This pioneering book, the first monograph devoted to Donald Judd, addresses the whole breadth of Judd’s practices. Drawing on documents found in nearly twenty archives, David Raskin explains why some of Judd’s works of art seem startlingly ephemeral while others remain insistently physical. In the process of answering this previously perplexing question, Raskin traces Judd’s principles from his beginnings as an art critic through his fabulous installations and designs in Marfa, Texas. He discusses Judd’s early important paintings and idiosyncratic red objects, as well as the three-dimensional works that are celebrated throughout the world. He also examines Judd’s commitment to empirical values and his political activism, and concludes by considering the importance of Judd’s example for recent art. Ultimately, Raskin develops a picture of Judd as never before seen: he shows us an artist who asserted his individuality with spare designs; who found spiritual values in plywood, Plexiglas, and industrial production; who refused to distinguish between thinking and feeling while asserting that science marked the limits of knowledge; who claimed that his art provided intuitions of morality but not a specific set of tenets; and who worked for political causes that were neither left nor right.

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A compelling and definitive account of why we need to radically rethink our approach to dealing with catastrophic events Catastrophic events such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Tohoku "Triple Disaster" of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that hit the eastern seaboard of Japan in 2012 are seen as surprises that have a low probability of occurring but have a debilitating impact when they do. In this eye-opening journey through modern and ancient risk management practices, Jon Coaffee explains why we need to find a new way to navigate the deeply uncertain world that we live in. Examining how governments have responded to terrorist threats, climate change, and natural hazards, Coaffee shows how and why these measures have proven inadequate and what should be done to make us more resilient. While conventional approaches have focused on planning and preparing for disruptions and enhanced our ability to "bounce back," our focus should be on anticipating future challenges and enhancing our capacity to adapt to new threats.

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Engaging but caustic and openly ideological, Antonin Scalia was among the most influential justices ever to serve on the United States Supreme Court. In this fascinating new book, legal scholar Richard L. Hasen assesses Scalia’s complex legacy as a conservative legal thinker and disruptive public intellectual. The left saw Scalia as an unscrupulous foe who amplified his judicial role with scathing dissents and outrageous public comments. The right viewed him as a rare principled justice committed to neutral tools of constitutional and statutory interpretation. Hasen provides a more nuanced perspective, demonstrating how Scalia was crucial to reshaping jurisprudence on issues from abortion to gun rights to separation of powers. A jumble of contradictions, Scalia promised neutral tools to legitimize the Supreme Court, but his jurisprudence and confrontational style moved the Court to the right, alienated potential allies, and helped to delegitimize the institution he was trying to save.

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The first major work in English on Mathias Goeritz (1915-1990), this book illuminates the artist’s pivotal role within the landscape of twentieth-century modernism. Goeritz became recognized as an abstract sculptor after arriving in Mexico from Germany by way of Spain in 1949. His call to integrate abstract forms into civic and religious architecture, outlined in his “Emotional Architecture” manifesto, had a transformative impact on midcentury Mexican art and design. While best known for the experimental museum El Eco and his collaborations with the architect Luis Barragán, including the brightly colored towers of Satellite City, Goeritz also shaped the Bauhaus-inspired curriculum at Guadalajara’s School of Architecture and the iconic Cultural Program of Mexico City’s 1968 Olympic Games. Josten addresses the Cold War implications of these and other initiatives that pitted Goeritz, an advocate of internationalist abstraction, against Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, ardent defenders of the realist style that prevailed in official Mexican art during the postrevolutionary period. Exploring Goeritz’s dialogues with leading figures among the Parisian and New York avant-gardes, such as Yves Klein and Philip Johnson, Josten shows how Goeritz’s approach to modernism, which was highly attuned to politics and place, formed part of a global enterprise.

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A lavishly illustrated book that offers an in-depth look at the cultural practices surrounding the tradition of collecting ancient bronzes in China during the 18th and 19th centuries In ancient China (2000–221 b.c.) elaborate bronze vessels were used for rituals involving cooking, drinking, and serving food. This fascinating book not only examines the cultural practices surrounding these objects in their original context, but it also provides the first in-depth study tracing the tradition of collecting these bronzes in China. Essays by international experts delve into the concerns of the specialized culture that developed around the vessels and the significant influence this culture, with its emphasis on the concept of antiquity, had on broader Chinese society. While focusing especially on bronze collections of the 18th and 19th centuries, this wide-ranging catalogue also touches on the ways in which contemporary artists continue to respond to the complex legacy of these objects. Packed with stunning photographs of exquisitely crafted vessels, Mirroring China’s Past is an enlightening investigation into how the role of ancient bronzes has evolved throughout Chinese history. Distributed for the Art Institute of ChicagoExhibition Schedule:The Art Institute of Chicago (02/25/18–05/13/18)

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The third of four volumes in a distinguished series, this volume includes chapters on the nature of the communal bond, marriage and family, welfare, taxation, government, and criminal justice The four-volume series on the Jewish political tradition that includes this volume seeks to connect the political thought of ancient Israel and the Diaspora with the emerging traditions of the modern Israeli state. The first two volumes dealt with authority and membership, respectively; this third volume, with Madeline Kochen as coeditor, deals with community, with chapters on the communal bond, marriage and family, welfare, taxation, government, and criminal justice.

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An exploration of hypothetical turning points in history from Ancient Greece to September 11 What if history, as we know it, had run another course? Touching on alternate histories of the future and the past, or uchronias, A Past of Possibilities encourages deeper consideration of watershed moments in the course of history. Wide-ranging in scope, it examines the Boxer Rebellion in China, the 1848 revolution in France, and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, and integrates science fiction, history, historiography, sociology, anthropology, and film. In probing the genre of literature and history that is fascinated with hypotheticals surrounding key points in history, Quentin Deluermoz and Pierre Singaravélou reach beyond a mere reimagining of history, exploring the limits and potentials of the futures past. From the most bizarre fiction to serious scientific hypothesis, they provide a survey of the uses of counterfactual histories, methodological issues on the possible in social sciences, and practical proposals for using alternate histories in research and the wider public.

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A panoramic, provocative account of the clash between British imperialism and Arab jihadism in Africa between 1870 and 1920 "An epic account of the British Empire’s activities in Africa and the Middle East. . . . An important, indeed tremendous, contribution."—John Newsinger, author of The Blood Never Dried: A People’s History of the British Empire The Ottoman Sultan called for a "Great Jihad" against the Entente powers at the start of the First World War. He was building on half a century of conflict between British colonialism and the people of the Middle East and North Africa. Resistance to Western violence increasingly took the form of radical Islamic insurgency. Ranging from the forests of Central Africa to the deserts of Egypt, Sudan, and Somaliland, Neil Faulkner explores a fatal collision between two forms of oppression, one rooted in the ancient slave trade, the other in modern "coolie" capitalism. He reveals the complex interactions between anti-slavery humanitarianism, British hostility to embryonic Arab nationalism, "war on terror" moral panics, and Islamist revolt. Far from being an enduring remnant of the medieval past, or an essential expression of Muslim identity, Faulkner argues that "Holy War" was a reactionary response to the violence of modern imperialism.

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The definitive account of the superior fighting force that powered the English Revolution The New Model Army was one of the most formidable fighting forces ever assembled. Formed in 1645, it was crucial in overthrowing the monarchy and propelling one of its most brilliant generals, Oliver Cromwell, to power during the English Revolution. Paradoxically, it was also instrumental in restoring the king in 1660. But the true nature of this army has long been debated. In this authoritative history, Ian Gentles examines the full scope of the New Model Army. As a fighting force it engineered regicide, pioneered innovative military tactics, and helped to keep Cromwell in power as Lord Protector until his death. All the while, those within its ranks promoted radical political ideas inspired by the Levellers and held dissenting religious beliefs. Gentles explores how brilliant battlefield maneuvering and logistical prowess contributed to its victories—and demonstrates the vital role religion played in building morale and military effectiveness.

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While legend has it that Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) sold only one work during his lifetime, it was not long after his death that sales of his paintings began to shatter auction house records. In this carefully researched book, leading Van Gogh scholars provide us with a glimpse into classified client files and illuminate the critical role that the Thannhauser Gallery occupied in cultivating and shaping an early clientele for the artist’s works. Founded in Munich in 1909, the Thannhauser Gallery was Germany’s preeminent promoter of the avant-garde in the decades before World War II. In other European cities and in New York, the business thrived, selling an impressive number of Van Gogh’s oeuvre: roughly 110 works, including many masterpieces, now part of museum collections all over the world. Distributed for Mercatorfonds

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A wealth of new research and thinking on Lawrence, the Arab Revolt, and World War One in the Middle East, providing essential background to today’s violent conflicts Rarely is a book published that revises our understanding of an entire world region and the history that has defined it. This groundbreaking volume makes just such a contribution. Neil Faulkner draws on ten years of field research to offer the first truly multidisciplinary history of the conflicts that raged in Sinai, Arabia, Palestine, and Syria during the First World War. In Lawrence of Arabia’s War, the author rewrites the history of T. E. Lawrence’s legendary military campaigns in the context of the Arab Revolt. He explores the intersections among the declining Ottoman Empire, the Bedouin tribes, nascent Arab nationalism, and Western imperial ambition. The book provides a new analysis of Ottoman resilience in the face of modern industrialized warfare, and it assesses the relative weight of conventional operations in Palestine and irregular warfare in Syria. Faulkner thus reassesses the historic roots of today’s divided, fractious, war-torn Middle East.

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Considered the first Chinese artist to work in video, Zhang Peili (b. 1957) manipulates perspective, close-ups, and framing to create astonishing recordings of banal repeated actions, such as breaking glass, reading, washing, shaving, and blowing bubble gum. He is a pioneering figure, experimenting with a video camera in the late 1980s, exploring digital formats in the early 2000s, and developing large-scale, immersive scenes today. Despite Zhang’s pivotal role in the global history of video art, his oeuvre has received relatively little attention. This book, which includes insightful essays, color plates, and an illustrated chronology, is one of the few in-depth explorations in English of this important artist’s work. Distributed for the Art Institute of ChicagoExhibition Schedule:The Art Institute of Chicago (03/31/17–07/09/17)

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The complex facets of Cubism remain relevant subjects in art history today, a century after Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque developed the revolutionary style. This impressive collection of essays by international experts presents new lines of inquiry, including novel readings of individual objects or groups of works through close visual, material, and archival analysis; detailed studies of how Cubism related to intellectual and political movements of the early 20th century; and accounts of crucial moments in the reception of Cubism by curators, artists, and critics. Generous illustrations of paintings, drawings, and sculptures, some familiar but others virtually unknown, support this wide range of approaches to the pioneering works of Picasso, Braque, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, and others.Distributed for the National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts

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A powerful biography of the internationally renowned writer who created one of the most enduring characters in children’s literature, Pippi Longstocking“[An] Insightful, elegantly written biography of the beloved author of the Pippi Longstocking tales, a complex woman of parts. . . Readers who grew up on Lindgren's stories will find this excellent book irresistible—and often surprising.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review The first English-language biography of Astrid Lindgren provides a moving and revealing portrait of the beloved Scandinavian literary icon whose adventures of Pippi Longstocking have influenced generations of young readers all over the world. Lindgren’s sometimes turbulent life as an unwed teenage mother, outspoken advocate for the rights of women and children, and celebrated editor and author is chronicled in fascinating detail by Jens Andersen, one of Denmark’s most popular biographers. Based on extensive research and access to primary sources and letters, this highly readable account describes Lindgren’s battles with depression and her personal struggles through war, poverty, motherhood, and fame. Andersen examines the writer’s oeuvre as well to uncover the secrets to the books’ universal appeal and why they have resonated so strongly with young readers for more than seventy years.

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A revelatory account of the complex and evolving relationship of Renaissance architects to classical antiquity Focusing on the work of architects such as Brunelleschi, Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo, this extensively illustrated volume explores how the understanding of the antique changed over the course of the Renaissance. David Hemsoll reveals the ways in which significant differences in imitative strategy distinguished the period’s leading architects from each other and argues for a more nuanced understanding of the widely accepted trope—first articulated by Giorgio Vasari in the 16th century—that Renaissance architecture evolved through a linear step-by-step assimilation of antiquity. Offering an in-depth examination of the complex, sometimes contradictory, and often contentious ways that Renaissance architects approached the antique, this meticulously researched study brings to life a cacophony of voices and opinions that have been lost in the simplified Vasarian narrative and presents a fresh and comprehensive account of Renaissance architecture in both Florence and Rome.

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A major reassessment of the development of race and subjecthood in the British Atlantic Focusing on Jamaica, Britain’s most valuable colony in the Americas by the mid-eighteenth century, this book explores the relationship between racial classifications and the inherited rights and privileges associated with British subject status. Brooke Newman reveals the centrality of notions of blood and blood mixture to evolving racial definitions and sexual practices in colonial Jamaica and to legal and political debates over slavery and the rights of imperial subjects on both sides of the Atlantic. Weaving together a diverse range of sources, Newman shows how colonial racial ideologies rooted in fictions of blood ancestry at once justified permanent, hereditary slavery for Africans and barred members of certain marginalized groups from laying claim to British liberties on the basis of hereditary status. This groundbreaking study demonstrates that challenges to an Atlantic slave system underpinned by distinctions of blood had far-reaching consequences for British understandings of race, gender, and national belonging.

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A comprehensive guide to County Durham, one of Northern England’s most fascinating and architecturally diverse counties This volume surveys one of northern England’s most varied and rewarding counties. County Durham, flanked by the rivers Tyne and Tees, boasts Durham Cathedral, England’s most impressive Norman church, located unforgettably alongside Durham Castle on the cliff tops above the River Wear. Exceptionally rich in Anglo-Saxon churches and sculpture, County Durham features the legacy of the brilliant culture of the age of Bede. Many of Durham’s extraordinary castles remain inhabited, with palatial interiors from the Georgian and Victorian periods. In addition to fine gentry houses and stone-built market towns, the county also reveals the legacy of historic industries, including early railway buildings, collieries and lead mines. During the 20th century, a new generation of innovative buildings for culture and education at Gateshead and Sunderland emerged. Specially commissioned photography and maps complement an exceptional guide to this architecturally rich northern English county.

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A newly updated edition of the best-selling primer on the social, political, and economic challenges facing Central and South America Ten years after its first publication, Michael Reid’s best-selling survey of the state of contemporary Latin America has been wholly updated to reflect the new realities of the “Forgotten Continent.” The former Americas editor for the Economist, Reid suggests that much of Central and South America, though less poor, less unequal, and better educated than before, faces harder economic times now that the commodities boom of the 2000s is over. His revised, in-depth account of the region reveals dynamic societies more concerned about corruption and climate change, the uncertainties of a Donald Trump-led United States, and a political cycle that, in many cases, is turning from left-wing populism to center-right governments. This essential new edition provides important insights into the sweeping changes that have occurred in Latin America in recent years and indicates priorities for the future.

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A monumental new work of scholarship on a luminary of twentieth-century art “I’m not sure I have ever seen a catalogue raisonné as beautiful, as magnificent, as the new publication on the oeuvre of the great American sculptor David Smith.”—Michael Fried, Bookforum Embracing factory methods of construction, building on the legacy of cubism, and turning his back on European carving and casting traditions, David Smith (1906–1965) transformed postwar sculpture. His body of work, contemporary with the New York School in painting, and his pioneering placement of sculptures in a natural setting are foundational for present-day sculpture and installation art. This three-volume boxed set comprehensively details the entirety of Smith’s sculptural oeuvre. It is now the definitive catalogue raisonné and supplants the one constructed by Rosalind E. Krauss in 1977. With Christopher Lyon as editor and Susan J. Cooke as research editor, the volumes also contain a foreword by Rebecca and Candida Smith; essays by Michael Brenson, Sarah Hamill, Marc-Christian Roussel, and Christopher Lyon; and a chronology by Tracee Ng. Reproductions of documents and images, including many photographs, paintings, drawings, and sketches by the artist offer insights into Smith’s methods and creative thought. Handsomely designed and illustrated with fine color reproductions, this catalogue raisonné is both a sumptuous object and an essential scholarly resource. Distributed for the Estate of David Smith

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Focus on Contemporary Arabic is the fifth volume in the Conversations with Native Speakers series, which strives to offer pioneering multimedia language materials to students at the intermediate and advanced levels. These programs consist of a slim, user-friendly student textbook and accompanying online media that features interviews with a variety of native speakers filmed in the target language. These speakers represent all areas of the cultural spectrum, offering a realistic view of the diversity of the native-speaking populations of the target language. The video interviews broach an assortment of socially and culturally relevant topics and present students of the language with a glimpse into the complexity of both the language and the culture.

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Pulling back the covers on the fascinating, yet often forgotten, history of the bed "If you thought that your bed was only good for sleeping in, having sex in, or dying in, then this book will disabuse you—in fact, it’s so entertaining, it will keep you awake long into the night.”—Paul Chrystal, author of In Bed with the Ancient Greeks and In Bed with the Romans Louis XIV ruled France from his bedchamber. Winston Churchill governed Britain from his during World War II. Travelers routinely used to bed down with complete strangers, and whole families shared beds in many preindustrial households. Beds were expensive items—and often for show. Tutankhamun was buried on a golden bed, wealthy Greeks were sent to the afterlife on dining beds, and deceased middle-class Victorians were propped up on a bed in the parlor. In this sweeping social history that covers the past seventy thousand years, Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani look at the endlessly varied role of the bed through time. This was a place for sex, death, childbirth, storytelling, and sociability as well as sleeping. But who did what with whom, why, and how could vary incredibly depending on the time and place. It is only in the modern era that the bed has transformed into a private, hidden zone, and its rich social history has largely been forgotten.

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A generously illustrated look at the intricate narrative threads of three of the artist’s earliest works, and their continued resonance today Celebrated for works blending performance, video, and sculpture, Matthew Barney has created complex narratives that emerge across series since his earliest exhibitions. Matthew Barney: OTTO Trilogy is the first book to trace the progression of three significant early projects—Facility of INCLINE, Facility of DECLINE, and OTTOshaft— and to reveal the narrative system that links them. Titled after former football player Jim Otto, the series explores the training, discipline, and physical limits of the body alongside questions of sexual difference and desire. Featuring an illuminating introduction by Nancy Spector; an essay by Maggie Nelson on the works’ exploration of psychology, bodies, image-making, narrative, and abstraction; and a new text by the artist, this generously illustrated volume includes previously unpublished artist’s sketches, behind-the-scenes photographs, research material, and video stills. It is the definitive publication on this important series, and offers a key to understanding many of the themes that thread throughout Barney’s oeuvre.Distributed for the Gladstone GalleryExhibition Schedule:Gladstone Gallery, New York (09/08/16–10/22/16)

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This engaging study explores how the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, and others were taken up by caricaturists as a means of helping the eighteenth-century British public make sense of political issues, outrages, and personalities. The first in-depth exploration of the relationship between literature and visual satire in this period, David Taylor’s book explores how great texts, seen through the lens of visual parody, shape how we understand the political world. It offers a fascinating, novel approach to literary history.

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This beautifully illustrated book offers a comprehensive look at the career of photographer William Notman (1826–1891). Born in Scotland, Notman emigrated to Canada in 1856; he settled in Montreal and opened a photography studio that later had branches throughout Canada and the United States. Notman documented the development of a continent, photographing street scenes in burgeoning cities and modern transportation by steam and rail, and creating portraits of such notable figures as Mark Twain, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sitting Bull, and Buffalo Bill. By fully exploiting the commercial and aesthetic potential of the rapidly advancing photographic technology, Notman contributed to the establishment of the socio-economic prominence of Montreal and played a key role in the formation of a Canadian national identity. Published and unpublished photographs are paired with texts that explore the photographer’s numerous achievements.Distributed for Editions Hazan, ParisExhibition Schedule:McCord Museum, Montreal (11/04/16–04/16/17)

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A leading psychoanalyst shares his experiences working with schizophrenic patients to show how effective talk therapy can be as a treatment Many schizophrenics experience their condition as one of radical incarceration, mind-altering medications, isolation, and dehumanization. At a time when the treatment of choice is anti-psychotic medication, world-renowned psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas asserts that schizophrenics can be helped by much more humane treatments, and that they have a chance to survive and even reverse the process if they have someone to talk to them regularly and for a sustained period, soon after their first breakdown. In this sensitive and evocative narrative, he draws on his personal experiences working with schizophrenics since the 1960’s. He offers his interpretation of how schizophrenia develops, typically in the teens, as an adaptation in the difficult transition to adulthood. With tenderness, Bollas depicts schizophrenia as an understandable way of responding to our precariousness in a highly unpredictable world. He celebrates the courage of the children he has worked with and reminds us that the wisdom inherent in human beings—to turn to conversation with others when in distress—is the fundamental foundation of any cure for human conflict.

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A riveting history of raw capitalism that exposes the unscrupulousness at its heart Vice is endemic to Western capitalism, according to this fascinating, wildly entertaining, often startling history of modern finance. Ian Klaus’s Forging Capitalism demonstrates how international financial affairs in the nineteenth century were conducted not only by gentlemen as a noble pursuit but also by connivers, thieves, swindlers, and frauds who believed that no risk was too great and no scheme too outrageous if the monetary reward was substantial enough. Taken together, the grand deceptions of the ambitious schemers and the determined efforts to guard against them have been instrumental in creating the financial establishments of today. In a story teeming with playboys and scoundrels and rich in colorful and amazing events, Klaus chronicles the evolution of trust through three distinct epochs: the age of values, the age of networks and reputations, and, ultimately, in a world of increased technology and wealth, the age of skepticism and verification. In today’s world, where the questionable dealings of large international financial institutions are continually in the spotlight, this extraordinary history has great relevance, offering essential lessons in both the importance and the limitations of trust.

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An incisive analysis of the state of the global economy and what the future holds.Surrounded by sluggish growth, high rates of unemployment, rising inequality, growing financial instability and increased social tensions, pessimism about our future abounds. Dr. Mohamed A. El-Erian, one of the world’s most influential economic thinkers, explains lucidly the realities of the economic choices that we will soon face. The path that the global economy and markets are on is ending. But what comes thereafter is far from predestined. It critically depends on choices that we make as households and companies, and decisions that our political representatives take. The Only Game in Town details how the world is increasingly being shaken, both from above and from below. It illuminates the growing internal contradictions, the constraints that are undermining growth and prosperity, and the radical overhaul in thinking that is required. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, central banks were handed responsibility for the fate of the global economy. Lifting the veil on the inner workings of these powerful and innovative institutions, El-Erian explains why they cannot save us this time around. Laying out a road map for growth, The Only Game in Town shows how and why collaboration between central bankers, policymakers and business leaders is essential. Drawing on insights from behavioral science, economics and finance, this book provides the tools needed to understand the uncertainties that lie ahead and return us to a path of prosperity. Thought provoking and insightful, this book is required reading for investors, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future.

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A new look at the art of one of the most charming and idiosyncratic personalities of early 20th-century New York Florine Stettheimer (1871–1944) was a New York original: a society lady who hosted an avant-garde salon in her Manhattan home, a bohemian and a flapper, a poet, a theater designer, and above all an influential painter with a sharp satirical wit. Stettheimer collaborated with Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson, befriended (and took French lessons from) Marcel Duchamp, and was a member of Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe’s artistic and intellectual circle. Beautifully illustrated with 150 color images, including the majority of the artist’s extant paintings, as well as drawings, theater designs, and ephemera, this volume also highlights Stettheimer’s poetry and gives her a long overdue critical reassessment. The essays published here—as well as a roundtable discussion by seven leading contemporary female artists—overturn the traditional perception of Stettheimer as an artist of mere novelties. Her work is linked not only to American modernism and the New York bohemian scene before World War II but also to a range of art practices active today. Flamboyant and epicurean, she was an astute documenter of New York and parodist of her social milieu; her highly decorative scenes borrowed from Surrealism and contributed to the beginnings of a feminist aesthetic. Published in association with the Jewish Museum, New York, and the Art Gallery of Ontario Exhibition Schedule:The Jewish Museum, New York (05/05/17–09/24/17)Art Gallery of Ontario (10/21/17–01/28/18)

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William Hogarth (1697–1764) was among the first British-born artists to rise to international recognition and acclaim and to this day he is considered one of the country’s most celebrated and innovative masters. His output encompassed engravings, paintings, prints, and editorial cartoons that presaged western sequential art. This comprehensive catalogue of his paintings brings together over twenty years of scholarly research and expertise on the artist, and serves to highlight the remarkable diversity of his accomplishments in this medium. Portraits, history paintings, theater pictures, and genre pieces are lavishly reproduced alongside detailed entries on each painting, including much previously unpublished material relating to his oeuvre. This deeply informed publication affirms Hogarth’s legacy and testifies to the artist’s enduring reputation. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

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No conflict of the Great War excites stronger emotions than the war in Flanders in the autumn of 1917, and no name better encapsulates the horror and apparent futility of the Western Front than Passchendaele. By its end there had been 275,000 Allied and 200,000 German casualties. Yet the territorial gains made by the Allies in four desperate months were won back by Germany in only three days the following March. The devastation at Passchendaele, the authors argue, was neither inevitable nor inescapable; perhaps it was not necessary at all. Using a substantial archive of official and private records, much of which has never been previously consulted, Trevor Wilson and Robin Prior provide the fullest account of the campaign ever published. The book examines the political dimension at a level which has hitherto been absent from accounts of "Third Ypres." It establishes what did occur, the options for alternative action, and the fundamental responsibility for the carnage. Prior and Wilson consider the shifting ambitions and stratagems of the high command, examine the logistics of war, and assess what the available manpower, weaponry, technology, and intelligence could realistically have hoped to achieve. And, most powerfully of all, they explore the experience of the soldiers in the light—whether they knew it or not—of what would never be accomplished.

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Scholars have traditionally focused on the subjects and meanings of Hieronymus Bosch's works, whereas issues of painting technique, workshop participation, and condition of extant pictures have received considerably less attention. Since 2010, the Bosch Research and Conservation Project has been studying these works using modern methods. The team has documented Bosch's extant paintings with infrared reflectography and ultra high-resolution digital macro photography, both in infrared and visible light. Together with microscopic study of the paintings, this has enabled the team to write extensive and critical research reports describing the techniques and condition of the works, published in this extraordinary volume for the first time.Distributed for Mercatorfonds

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