Search results for ""Author David Van Reybrouck""

*Intensive and innovative series on sexuality in Flanders*Includes an essay This is no dawn | Dit is geen dageraad by author David Van Reybrouck*Gert Jochems has been selected as one of British Journal of Photography's twenty photographers to watch in 2013 How should we look at these pictures of photographer Gert Jochems? With lust or disgust? With dismay or emotion? With nostalgia or yearning? S is a major series of photographs, taken by Belgian photographer Gert Jochems. They look at the 'regular' lives of 'regular' Belgian people, all of whom lead unconventional lives in private. In these photos, Jochems is an invisible observer in private sitting rooms, bedrooms and basements. Text in English & Dutch.

Read more less

Democracy is in bad health. Against Elections offers a new diagnosis – and an ancient remedy.Fear-mongering populists, distrust in the establishment, personality contests instead of reasoned debate: these are the results of the latest elections.In fact, as this ingenious book shows, the original purpose of elections was to exclude the people from power by appointing an elite to govern over them.Yet for most of its 3000-year history, democracy did not involve elections at all: members of the public were appointed to positions in government through a combination of volunteering and lottery.Based on studies and trials from around the globe, this hugely influential manifesto presents the practical case for a true democracy – one that actually works.Urgent, heretical and completely convincing, Against Elections leaves only one question to be answered: what are we waiting for?

Read more less

FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL PRIZE FOR HISTORY ‘Not only deserves the description “epic”, in its true sense, but the term “masterpiece” as well’ Independent This gripping epic tells the story of one of the world’s most critical failed nation-states: the Democratic Republic of Congo. Interweaving his own family’s history with the voices of a diverse range of individuals – charismatic dictators, feuding warlords, child soldiers, and many in the African diaspora of Europe and China – Van Reybrouck offers a deeply humane approach to political history, focusing squarely on the Congolese perspective and returning a nation’s history to its people.

Read more less

Belgicum is a photo project about Belgium. It is not an objective representation of a country but rather a subjective photographical document in black and white. It's a journey of exploration into a small country in the heart of Europe, at the turn of the centuries. More than fifteen years Vanfleteren has wandered through and hunted in the 'Belgicum' territories, guided by emotion and by the love for his homeland. He made a journey through a scarred land, in search of the irretrievable identity of a country with the melancholic soul of an old nation. Over the past ten years, over 11,000 copies were sold of this international bestseller. Belgicum grew out to be a reference work in the Belgian history of photography. On the occasion of the tenth birthday of this cult book, it was reprinted. With text by David Van Reybrouck. Text in English, French and Dutch.

Read more less

A story of staggering scope and drama, Revolusi is the masterful and definitive account of the epic revolution that sparked the decolonisation of the modern world.'Astounding . . . history at its best' Yuval Harari'Utterly compelling' Financial Times'Superb' GuardianOn a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and on behalf of 68 million compatriots announced the birth of a new nation: Indonesia.Four million civilians had died during the Japanese wartime occupation that ousted its Dutch colonial regime. Another 200,000 people would lose their lives in the astonishingly brutal conflict that ensued - as the Dutch used savage violence to reassert their control, and as Britain and America became embroiled in pacifying Indonesia's guerrilla war of resistance: the 'Revolusi'. It was not until December 1949 that the newly created United Nations finally brought the conflict an end - and with it, 350 years of colonial rule - setting a precedent that would reshape the world.Drawing on hundreds of interviews and eye-witness testimonies, David Van Reybrouck turns this vast and complex story into an utterly gripping narrative that is alive with human detail at every turn. A landmark publication, Revolusi shows Indonesia's struggle for independence to be one of the defining dramas of the twentieth century.'A magnificent fusion of oral history, sparkling analysis, and historical wisdom. Revolusi has it all: a masterpiece' SEBASTIAN MALLABY'One of the most unlikely and astonishing sagas ... a towering achievement' THOMAS MEANEY'A magisterial but gripping account of events of urgent importance to us now' JASON BURKE'At once vast and intimate, a history in colour' LAKSMI PAMUNTJAK'A masterly display of the historian’s craft' J M COETZEE'A wonderful and important book' PETER FRANKOPAN

Read more less

A story of staggering scope and drama, Revolusi is the masterful and definitive account of the epic revolution that sparked the decolonisation of the modern world.'Astounding . . . history at its best' Yuval Harari'Utterly compelling' Financial Times'Superb' GuardianOn a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and on behalf of 68 million compatriots announced the birth of a new nation: Indonesia.Four million civilians had died during the Japanese wartime occupation that ousted its Dutch colonial regime. Another 200,000 people would lose their lives in the astonishingly brutal conflict that ensued - as the Dutch used savage violence to reassert their control, and as Britain and America became embroiled in pacifying Indonesia's guerrilla war of resistance: the 'Revolusi'. It was not until December 1949 that the newly created United Nations finally brought the conflict an end - and with it, 350 years of colonial rule - setting a precedent that would reshape the world.Drawing on hundreds of interviews and eye-witness testimonies, David Van Reybrouck turns this vast and complex story into an utterly gripping narrative that is alive with human detail at every turn. A landmark publication, Revolusi shows Indonesia's struggle for independence to be one of the defining dramas of the twentieth century.'A magnificent fusion of oral history, sparkling analysis, and historical wisdom. Revolusi has it all: a masterpiece' SEBASTIAN MALLABY'One of the most unlikely and astonishing sagas ... a towering achievement' THOMAS MEANEY'A magisterial but gripping account of events of urgent importance to us now' JASON BURKE'At once vast and intimate, a history in colour' LAKSMI PAMUNTJAK'A masterly display of the historian’s craft' J M COETZEE'A wonderful and important book' PETER FRANKOPAN

Read more less

A century after it began, we still struggle with the terrible reality of the First World War, often through republished photographs of its horrors: the muddy trenches, the devastated battlefields, the maimed survivors. Due to the crude film cameras used at the time, the look of the Great War has traditionally been grainy, blurred, and monochrome-until now. The First World War presents a startlingly different perspective, one based on rare glass plate photographs, that reveals the war with previously unseen, even uncanny, clarity. Scanned from the original plates, with scratches and other flaws expertly removed, these oversized reproductions offer a wealth of unusual moments, including scenes of men in training, pictures of African colonial troops on the Western front, landscapes of astonishing destruction, and postmortem portraits of Belgian soldiers killed in action. Readers previously familiar with only black-and-white or sepia-toned prints of the hostilities will be riveted by the book's many authentic color photographs, products of the early autochrome method. From children playing war games to a wrenching deathbed visit, these images are extraordinary not only for their subject matter, but also for the wide range of emotions they evoke. Accompanied by a preface from celebrated writer Geoff Dyer and an essay by historian David Van Reybrouck, the photographs here serve both as remarkable witnesses to the everyday life of warfare and as dramatic works of art in their own right. These images, taken by some of the conflict's most gifted photographers, will radically change how we visualize the First World War.

Read more less