A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY
1305 scholarly books by Reaktion Books and 107
1305 scholarly books by Reaktion Books
107 have author last names that start with C have author last names that start with C
107 have author last names that start with C have author last names that start with C
Mexico City
Nicholas Caistor
Reaktion Books, 2019
Mexico City has always been a seat of empire. With its grandiose pretensions, sheer swagger, and staggering proportions, it gives the impression of power exercised over great time and distances. And yet this power has frequently been contested, lending the city a tough, battle-hardened look. At the same time, life in the Mexican capital can be carefree and intoxicating, and the city continues to offer any visitor not only glimpses of past grandeur, but of the fascinating wealth of the culture of Mexico today.
This book explores how the city has grown and evolved from the Tenochtitlan city-state of the Aztecs to the capital of the Spanish empire’s “New Spain,” French intervention, revolution, and the newly branded CDMX. Nick Caistor leads us through centuries of history and into the material city of today: from recently constructed museums and shopping malls, to neighborhoods where age-old traditions still appear to be the norm. Whether sampling ice cream at Xochimilco, watching freestyle wrestling at the Arena Mexico, or savoring long Mexican breakfasts, Nick Caistor reveals why Mexico City continues to fascinate and beguile us.
This book explores how the city has grown and evolved from the Tenochtitlan city-state of the Aztecs to the capital of the Spanish empire’s “New Spain,” French intervention, revolution, and the newly branded CDMX. Nick Caistor leads us through centuries of history and into the material city of today: from recently constructed museums and shopping malls, to neighborhoods where age-old traditions still appear to be the norm. Whether sampling ice cream at Xochimilco, watching freestyle wrestling at the Arena Mexico, or savoring long Mexican breakfasts, Nick Caistor reveals why Mexico City continues to fascinate and beguile us.
[more]
Octavio Paz
Nicholas Caistor
Reaktion Books, 2007
Both an artist and activist, Octavio Paz won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1990. This recognition was the culmination of decades of work, as Paz strove to marry traditional Mexican poetry with distinctly surrealist and Spanish influences. Along with his work, Paz’s contribution to the intellectual debates of his time, such as those over the role of Mexican art in national identity, cannot be overemphasized.
In Octavio Paz, Nicholas Caistor takes a fresh look at Paz’s exquisite poetry and fascinating life. Born during the Mexican Revolution, Paz spent his youth fighting to free Mexico from the ideologies of both the left and right. He traveled to the United States, then to Spain, where he fought with the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists. He eventually served as a diplomat in India before returning to his homeland in 1968, where he again became a vocal opponent of the government. As Caistor demonstrates, Paz’s personal journey in those years was as exciting as his public life. He details here the multiple marriages and passionate friendships that inevitably made their way into Paz’s poetry.
Both concise and insightful, Octavio Paz reveals the life that informs a poetry that is deeply expressive—and distinctly political.
In Octavio Paz, Nicholas Caistor takes a fresh look at Paz’s exquisite poetry and fascinating life. Born during the Mexican Revolution, Paz spent his youth fighting to free Mexico from the ideologies of both the left and right. He traveled to the United States, then to Spain, where he fought with the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists. He eventually served as a diplomat in India before returning to his homeland in 1968, where he again became a vocal opponent of the government. As Caistor demonstrates, Paz’s personal journey in those years was as exciting as his public life. He details here the multiple marriages and passionate friendships that inevitably made their way into Paz’s poetry.
Both concise and insightful, Octavio Paz reveals the life that informs a poetry that is deeply expressive—and distinctly political.
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Fidel Castro
Nick Caistor
Reaktion Books, 2013
Fidel Castro had ruled the island of Cuba for fifty-two years when ill health forced him to step down in 2008. Over the course of that time, he changed Cuba from a republic to a communist state and became one of the most divisive leaders in the second half of the twentieth century. For some, he is a champion of humanitarianism, socialism, and environmentalism. For others, he is a monster and dictator who perpetuated human rights abuses at home and abroad.
Providing a rare, evenhanded account of Castro’s life, journalist Nick Caistor brings together interviews with people who have known Castro with discussion of the ideas that drove him. Caistor follows Castro’s life from his birth as the illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer in 1926 to the developing of his leftist, anti-imperialist ideas at the University of Havana and his primary role in the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s. He explores Castro’s economic and military alliance with the Soviet Union and his hostile relationship with the United States while also looking at how he simultaneously introduced free health care and education while squelching freedom of the press and suppressing dissidents. As Caistor shows, Castro’s numerous writings on politics, capitalism, and other topics have influenced leaders from Nelson Mandela to Hugo Chávez, but allegations of corruption, human rights abuses, and dictatorship never ceased during his long career.
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The Work of Art
Plein Air Painting and Artistic Identity in Nineteenth-Century France
Anthea Callen
Reaktion Books, 2014
In The Work of Art, Anthea Callen analyzes the self-portraits, portraits of fellow artists, photographs, prints, and studio images of prominent nineteenth-century French Impressionist painters, exploring the emergence of modern artistic identity and its relation to the idea of creative work. Landscape painting in general, she argues, and the “plein air” oil sketch in particular were the key drivers of change in artistic practice in the nineteenth century—leading to the Impressionist revolution.
Putting the work of artists from Courbet and Cézanne to Pissaro under a microscope, Callen examines modes of self-representation and painting methods, paying particular attention to the painters’ touch and mark-making. Using innovative methods of analysis, she provides new and intriguing ways of understanding material practice within its historical moment and the cultural meanings it generates. Richly illustrated with 180 color and black-and-white images, The Work of Art offers fresh insights into the development of avant-garde French painting and the concept of the modern artist.
Putting the work of artists from Courbet and Cézanne to Pissaro under a microscope, Callen examines modes of self-representation and painting methods, paying particular attention to the painters’ touch and mark-making. Using innovative methods of analysis, she provides new and intriguing ways of understanding material practice within its historical moment and the cultural meanings it generates. Richly illustrated with 180 color and black-and-white images, The Work of Art offers fresh insights into the development of avant-garde French painting and the concept of the modern artist.
[more]
Henry Miller
David Stephen Calonne
Reaktion Books, 2014
As an author, Henry Miller (1891–1980) was infamous for his explicit descriptions of sex, and many of his novels, from The Tropic of Cancer to Black Spring, were banned in the United States on grounds of obscenity. But his books—frequently smuggled into his native country—became a major influence on the Beat Generation of American writers and would eventually lead to a groundbreaking series of obscenity trials that would change American laws on pornography in literary works. In this new critical biography, David Stephen Calonne goes beyond Miller’s notoriety to take an innovative look at the way in which the author’s writings and lifestyle were influenced by his spiritual quests.
Charting Miller’s cultivation of his esoteric ideas from boyhood and adolescence to later in his career, Calonne examines how Miller remained deeply engaged with a variety of philosophies, from astrology and Gnosticism to Eastern thinkers. Calonne describes not only the effects this had on Miller’s work, but also to his complex and volatile life—his marriages and love affairs with Beatrice Wickens, June Mansfield, and Anaïs Nin; his years in Paris; and the journey to Greece that resulted in the travelogue The Colossus of Maroussi, the book Miller considered to be his greatest work. After discussing Miller’s final residences in Big Sur and the Pacific Palisades in California, Calonne considers the author’s involvement in the arts, love of painting and music, and friendships with a number of classical musicians. Miller, Calonne reveals, was a quirky, charismatic man of genius who continues to influence popular culture today.
Highlighting many areas of the author’s life that have previously been neglected, Henry Miller takes a fascinating revisionary approach to the work of one of American’s most controversial and iconic writers.
Charting Miller’s cultivation of his esoteric ideas from boyhood and adolescence to later in his career, Calonne examines how Miller remained deeply engaged with a variety of philosophies, from astrology and Gnosticism to Eastern thinkers. Calonne describes not only the effects this had on Miller’s work, but also to his complex and volatile life—his marriages and love affairs with Beatrice Wickens, June Mansfield, and Anaïs Nin; his years in Paris; and the journey to Greece that resulted in the travelogue The Colossus of Maroussi, the book Miller considered to be his greatest work. After discussing Miller’s final residences in Big Sur and the Pacific Palisades in California, Calonne considers the author’s involvement in the arts, love of painting and music, and friendships with a number of classical musicians. Miller, Calonne reveals, was a quirky, charismatic man of genius who continues to influence popular culture today.
Highlighting many areas of the author’s life that have previously been neglected, Henry Miller takes a fascinating revisionary approach to the work of one of American’s most controversial and iconic writers.
[more]
Image on the Edge
The Margins of Medieval Art
Michael Camille
Reaktion Books, 2004
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? Michael Camille 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.
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.
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Mirror In Parchment
The Luttrell Psalter and the Making of Medieval England
Michael Camille
Reaktion Books, 1998
What is the status of visual evidence in history? Can we actually see the past through images? Where are the traces of previous lives deposited? Michael Camille addresses these important questions in Mirror in Parchment, a lively, searching study of one medieval manuscript, its patron, producers, and historical progeny.
The richly illuminated Luttrell Psalter was created for the English nobleman Sir Geoffrey Luttrell (1276-1345). Inexpensive mechanical illustration has since disseminated the book's images to a much wider audience; hence the Psalter's representations of manorial life have come to profoundly shape our modern idea of what medieval English people, high and low, looked like at work and at play. Alongside such supposedly truthful representations, the Psalter presents myriad images of fantastic monsters and beasts. These patently false images have largely been disparaged or ignored by modern historians and art historians alike, for they challenge the credibility of those pictures in the Luttrell Psalter that we wish to see as real.
In the conviction that medieval images were not generally intended to reflect daily life but rather to shape a new reality, Michael Camille analyzes the Psalter's famous pictures as representations of the world, imagined and real, of its original patron. Addressed are late medieval chivalric ideals, physical sites of power, and the boundaries of Sir Geoffrey's imagined community, wherein agricultural laborers and fabulous monsters play a similar ideological role. The Luttrell Psalter thus emerges as a complex social document of the world as its patron hoped and feared it might be.
The richly illuminated Luttrell Psalter was created for the English nobleman Sir Geoffrey Luttrell (1276-1345). Inexpensive mechanical illustration has since disseminated the book's images to a much wider audience; hence the Psalter's representations of manorial life have come to profoundly shape our modern idea of what medieval English people, high and low, looked like at work and at play. Alongside such supposedly truthful representations, the Psalter presents myriad images of fantastic monsters and beasts. These patently false images have largely been disparaged or ignored by modern historians and art historians alike, for they challenge the credibility of those pictures in the Luttrell Psalter that we wish to see as real.
In the conviction that medieval images were not generally intended to reflect daily life but rather to shape a new reality, Michael Camille analyzes the Psalter's famous pictures as representations of the world, imagined and real, of its original patron. Addressed are late medieval chivalric ideals, physical sites of power, and the boundaries of Sir Geoffrey's imagined community, wherein agricultural laborers and fabulous monsters play a similar ideological role. The Luttrell Psalter thus emerges as a complex social document of the world as its patron hoped and feared it might be.
[more]
Photography and Cinema
David Campany
Reaktion Books, 2008
What did the arrival of cinema do for photography? How did the moving image change our relation to the still image? Why have cinema and photography been so drawn to each other? Close-ups, freeze frames and the countless portrayals of photographers on screen are signs of cinema’s enduring attraction to the still image. Photo-stories, sequences and staged tableaux speak of the deep influence of cinema on photography.
Photography and Cinema a considers the importance of the still image for filmmakers such as the Lumière brothers, Alfred Hitchcock, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, Mark Lewis, Agnès Varda, Peter Weir, Christopher Nolan and many others. In parallel it looks at the cinematic in the work of photographers and artists that include Germaine Krull, William Klein, John Baldessari, Jeff Wall, Victor Burgin and Cindy Sherman.
From film stills and flipbooks to slide shows and digital imaging, hybrid visual forms have established an ambiguous realm between motion and stillness. David Campany assembles a missing history in which photography and cinema have been each other’s muse and inspiration for over a century.
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Opium’s Orphans
The 200-Year History of the War on Drugs
P. E. Caquet
Reaktion Books, 2022
Upending all we know about the war on drugs, a history of the anti-narcotics movement’s origins, evolution, and questionable effectiveness.
Opium’s Orphans is the first full history of drug prohibition and the “war on drugs.” A no-holds-barred but balanced account, it shows that drug suppression was born of historical accident, not rational design. The war on drugs did not originate in Europe or the United States, and even less with President Nixon, but in China. Two Opium Wars followed by Western attempts to atone for them gave birth to an anti-narcotics order that has come to span the globe. But has the war on drugs succeeded? As opioid deaths and cartel violence run rampant, contestation becomes more vocal, and marijuana is slated for legalization, Opium's Orphans proposes that it is time to go back to the drawing board.
Opium’s Orphans is the first full history of drug prohibition and the “war on drugs.” A no-holds-barred but balanced account, it shows that drug suppression was born of historical accident, not rational design. The war on drugs did not originate in Europe or the United States, and even less with President Nixon, but in China. Two Opium Wars followed by Western attempts to atone for them gave birth to an anti-narcotics order that has come to span the globe. But has the war on drugs succeeded? As opioid deaths and cartel violence run rampant, contestation becomes more vocal, and marijuana is slated for legalization, Opium's Orphans proposes that it is time to go back to the drawing board.
[more]
Cultures of Collecting
Roger Cardinal
Reaktion Books, 1994
This book traces the psychology, history and theory of the compulsion to collect, focusing not just on the normative collections of the Western canon, but also on collections that reflect a fascination with the "Other" and the marginal – the ephemeral, exotic, or just plain curious.
There are essays on the Neoclassical architect Sir John Soane, Sigmund Freud and Kurt Schwitters, one of the masters of collage. Others examine imperialist encounters with remote cultures – the consquitadors in America in the sixteenth century, and the British in the Pacific in the eighteenth – and the more recent collectors of popular culture, be they of Swatch watches, Elvis Presley memorabilia or of packaging and advertising.
With essays by Jean Baudrillard, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Nicholas Thomas, Mieke Bal, John Forrester, John Windsor, Naomi Schor, Susan Stewart, Anthony Alan Shelton, John Elsner, Roger Cardinal and an interview with Robert Opie.
There are essays on the Neoclassical architect Sir John Soane, Sigmund Freud and Kurt Schwitters, one of the masters of collage. Others examine imperialist encounters with remote cultures – the consquitadors in America in the sixteenth century, and the British in the Pacific in the eighteenth – and the more recent collectors of popular culture, be they of Swatch watches, Elvis Presley memorabilia or of packaging and advertising.
With essays by Jean Baudrillard, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Nicholas Thomas, Mieke Bal, John Forrester, John Windsor, Naomi Schor, Susan Stewart, Anthony Alan Shelton, John Elsner, Roger Cardinal and an interview with Robert Opie.
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The Landscape Vision of Paul Nash
Roger Cardinal
Reaktion Books, 2016
Paul Nash (1889-1946) has long been admired as one of the outstanding English landscape painters of the twentieth century. He has a deep affinity for sites in southern England, including the rolling downland near Swanage, the gaunt coastline at Dymchurch, the enigmatic stone circles at Avebury, and the twin hills in Oxfordshire known as the Wittenham Clumps, which became the focal symbol of his art.
In this book, Roger Cardinal surveys the full range of Nash’s work, from the ravaged Flanders landscapes of World War I to the spectacular aerial battles of World War II and on to the meditative late oils, his final masterpieces. Movingly written and beautifully illustrated, it offers a definitive account of the painter and a lovely addition to the bookshelves of any art lover.
In this book, Roger Cardinal surveys the full range of Nash’s work, from the ravaged Flanders landscapes of World War I to the spectacular aerial battles of World War II and on to the meditative late oils, his final masterpieces. Movingly written and beautifully illustrated, it offers a definitive account of the painter and a lovely addition to the bookshelves of any art lover.
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Cocktails
A Global History
Joseph M. Carlin
Reaktion Books, 2012
Gimlet, negroni, manhattan, Long Island ice tea, flirtini, hurricane, screwdriver—cocktails have come a long way from their first incarnation in the seventeenth century, when rum punch was everyone’s go-to drink. Originally made of five ingredients, including a spirit, sugar, and spices, “cocktail” now refers to any drink made of liquor and a mixer. In this book, Joseph M. Carlin uncovers how many of our favorite cocktails were invented and describes how this most American of alcoholic beverages—but most international of drinks—came to influence society around the world.
Traveling back to the nineteenth century, Carlin explains that, though England and the American colonies were enjoying rum punch years earlier, the true cocktail was born in America in 1806. Soon after mechanically harvested ice became widely available, Americans were sipping martinis and mint juleps in bars, saloons, and taprooms, and it didn’t take long for these tasty concoctions to spill over into all corners of the globe. The result, Carlin reveals, was the birth of a number of cocktail spinoffs—cocktail parties, cocktail dresses, cocktail wieners, cocktail napkins, and the Molotov cocktail, to name just a few. Featuring many tempting recipes, Cocktail: A Global History is a book to peruse with a mimosa in the morning and a martini at night.
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Hare
Simon Carnell
Reaktion Books, 2010
Once described as the “fastest, hairiest, most lascivious, and most melancholy” of mammals, the hare was also believed to never close its eyes, occasionally grow horns, and have the ability to change its sex. More than just a speedy, but lazy, character in popular children’s fables, the hare is remarkable for its actual behavior and the intriguing myths that have developed around it. Here, Simon Carnell examines how this animal has been described, symbolized, visually depicted, and sought for its fur, flesh, and exceptional speed.
Carnell tracks the hare from ancient Egypt, where a hieroglyph of a hare stood for the concept of existence itself, to Crucifixion scenes, Buddhist lore, and Algonquin creation myths, to the serial works of Joseph Beuys, and even to an art installation in a Dutch brothel. The hare shows up in both surprising and expected places—it was the principal subject of the first hunting treatise, it appears in the first signed and dated picture of a single animal, and it was credited in early medicine with the most curative properties of any animal.
Combining recent natural history with an extensive and richly illustrated focus on visual art, Hare is highly accessible and packed with details about a historically fascinating animal.
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A Brief History of Nakedness
Philip Carr-Gomm
Reaktion Books, 2010
As one common story goes, Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, had no idea that there was any shame in their lack of clothes; they were perfectly confident in their birthday suits among the animals of the Garden of Eden. All was well until that day when they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and went scrambling for fig leaves to cover their bodies. Since then, lucrative businesses have arisen to provide many stylish ways to cover our nakedness, for the naked human body now evokes powerful and often contradictory ideas—it thrills and revolts us, signifies innocence and sexual experience, and often marks the difference between nature and society. In A Brief History of Nakedness psychologist Philip Carr-Gomm traces our inescapable preoccupation with nudity.
Rather than studying the history of the nude in art or detailing the ways in which the naked body has been denigrated in the media, A Brief History of Nakedness reveals the ways in which religious teachers, politicians, protesters, and cultural icons have used nudity to enlighten or empower themselves as well as entertain us. Among his many examples, Carr-Gomm discusses how advertisers and the media employ images of bare skin—or even simply the word “naked”—to garner our attention, how mystics have used nudity to get closer to God, and how political protesters have discovered that baring all is one of the most effective ways to gain publicity for their cause. Carr-Gomm investigates how this use of something as natural as nakedness actually gets under our skin and evokes complicated and complex emotional responses.
From the naked sages of India to modern-day witches and Christian nudists, from Lady Godiva to Lady Gaga, A Brief History of Nakedness surveys the touching, sometimes tragic and often bizarre story of our relationships with our naked bodies.
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Shifting Currents
A World History of Swimming
Karen Eva Carr
Reaktion Books, 2022
A deep dive into the history of aquatics that exposes centuries-old tensions of race, gender, and power at the root of many contemporary swimming controversies.
Shifting Currents is an original and comprehensive history of swimming. It examines the tension that arose when non-swimming northerners met African and Southeast Asian swimmers. Using archaeological, textual, and art-historical sources, Karen Eva Carr shows how the water simultaneously attracted and repelled these northerners—swimming seemed uncanny, related to witchcraft and sin. Europeans used Africans’ and Native Americans’ swimming skills to justify enslaving them, but northerners also wanted to claim water’s power for themselves. They imagined that swimming would bring them health and demonstrate their scientific modernity. As Carr reveals, this unresolved tension still sexualizes women’s swimming and marginalizes Black and Indigenous swimmers today. Thus, the history of swimming offers a new lens through which to gain a clearer view of race, gender, and power on a centuries-long scale.
Shifting Currents is an original and comprehensive history of swimming. It examines the tension that arose when non-swimming northerners met African and Southeast Asian swimmers. Using archaeological, textual, and art-historical sources, Karen Eva Carr shows how the water simultaneously attracted and repelled these northerners—swimming seemed uncanny, related to witchcraft and sin. Europeans used Africans’ and Native Americans’ swimming skills to justify enslaving them, but northerners also wanted to claim water’s power for themselves. They imagined that swimming would bring them health and demonstrate their scientific modernity. As Carr reveals, this unresolved tension still sexualizes women’s swimming and marginalizes Black and Indigenous swimmers today. Thus, the history of swimming offers a new lens through which to gain a clearer view of race, gender, and power on a centuries-long scale.
[more]
Sting
From Northern Skies to Fields of Gold
Paul Carr
Reaktion Books, 2017
Gordon Sumner was born in a mainly working-class area of North Tyneside, England, in 1951. Decades later, we would come to know him as Sting, one of the world’s best-selling music artists. Sting was the lead singer of the Police from 1977 to 1984 before launching a hugely successful solo career. In Sting:From Northern Skies to Fields of Gold, popular music scholar Paul Carr argues that the foundations of Sting’s creativity and drive for success were established by his birthplace, with vestiges of his “Northern Englishness” continuing to emerge in his music long after he left his hometown.
Carr frames Sting’s creative impetus and output against the real, imagined, and idealized places he has occupied. Focusing on the sometimes-blurry borderlines between nostalgia, facts, imagination, and memories—as told by Sting, the people who knew (and know) him, and those who have written about him—Carr investigates the often complex resonance between local boy Gordon Sumner and the star the world knows as Sting. Published to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the formation of the definitive line-up of the Police, this is the first book to examine the relationship between Sting’s working class background in Newcastle, the life he has consequently lived, and the creativity and inspiration behind his music.
Carr frames Sting’s creative impetus and output against the real, imagined, and idealized places he has occupied. Focusing on the sometimes-blurry borderlines between nostalgia, facts, imagination, and memories—as told by Sting, the people who knew (and know) him, and those who have written about him—Carr investigates the often complex resonance between local boy Gordon Sumner and the star the world knows as Sting. Published to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the formation of the definitive line-up of the Police, this is the first book to examine the relationship between Sting’s working class background in Newcastle, the life he has consequently lived, and the creativity and inspiration behind his music.
[more]
Mouse
Georgie Carroll
Reaktion Books, 2015
From Mickey to Jerry, Rizzo to Pinky, mice have played an important role in our childhood tales. Often a heroic figure in culture and fiction—mice are the iconic symbol of Disney and Earth’s intellectually superior race in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—they are also considered one of the human race’s greatest adversaries, responsible for disease and plague. Presenting a natural and cultural history of the mouse, this book explores the large role this diminutive animal plays in both the animal kingdom and human imagination.
Examining the evolution, species, habitats, and behaviors of mice, Georgie Carroll reveals that they are accomplished survivors, having colonized six of the world’s continents and even traveled into space. As one of the earth’s smallest prey, the mouse, she shows, represents courage, perseverance, and adaptability. She surveys the depiction of mice in art, myth, literature, and folklore, considering how they are held in divine regard in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Carroll also delves into the integral place mice hold within the modern scientific endeavor—that of the laboratory animal. Telling the story of this beguiling creature in rich detail, Mouse is an intriguing look at an animal we have worshipped, tested, slaughtered, loved, and loathed.
Examining the evolution, species, habitats, and behaviors of mice, Georgie Carroll reveals that they are accomplished survivors, having colonized six of the world’s continents and even traveled into space. As one of the earth’s smallest prey, the mouse, she shows, represents courage, perseverance, and adaptability. She surveys the depiction of mice in art, myth, literature, and folklore, considering how they are held in divine regard in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Carroll also delves into the integral place mice hold within the modern scientific endeavor—that of the laboratory animal. Telling the story of this beguiling creature in rich detail, Mouse is an intriguing look at an animal we have worshipped, tested, slaughtered, loved, and loathed.
[more]
Parrot
Paul Carter
Reaktion Books, 2006
One of the more nonconformist figures in the animal kingdom, the parrot is linked to humans by its ability to speak—a trait many have found unsettling, though this discomfort is offset by its gorgeous plumage, which makes it one of the most popular members of the avian family. Unlike previous studies that have treated parrots as simply a curious oddity, Paul Carter offers here in Parrot a thoughtful yet spirited consideration of the natural and cultural history of parrots, discussing parrot portraiture, the role and significance of parrots' mimicry in human culture, and parrot conservation, as well the parrot's role in literature, folklore and mythology, film, and television worldwide.
Parrot takes three different approaches to the squawker: the first section, "Parrotics," examines the historical, cultural, and scientific classification of parrots; "Parroternalia," the second part, looks at the association of parrots with the different languages, ages, tastes, and dreams of society; and, finally, "Parrotology" investigates what the mimicry of parrots reveals about our own systems of communication. Humorously written and wide-ranging in scope, this volume takes readers beyond pirates and "Polly wants a cracker" to a new kind of animal history, one conscious of the critical and ironic mirror parrots hold up to human society.
Parrot takes three different approaches to the squawker: the first section, "Parrotics," examines the historical, cultural, and scientific classification of parrots; "Parroternalia," the second part, looks at the association of parrots with the different languages, ages, tastes, and dreams of society; and, finally, "Parrotology" investigates what the mimicry of parrots reveals about our own systems of communication. Humorously written and wide-ranging in scope, this volume takes readers beyond pirates and "Polly wants a cracker" to a new kind of animal history, one conscious of the critical and ironic mirror parrots hold up to human society.
[more]
Repressed Spaces
The Poetics of Agoraphobia
Paul Carter
Reaktion Books, 2004
In Repressed Spaces Paul Carter tours the cultural history of agoraphobia, the fear of open space. Its symptoms were first described in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) by Robert Burton, the British scholar and writer, although it wasn’t until 1871 that Carl Otto Westphal coined the term to describe several of his patients who experienced severe anxiety when walking through streets or squares. There have been many attempts to explain and treat the condition: critics of modernization have linked it to bad city planning; psychoanalysts, calling it "street panic", have blamed it on the Oedipus complex; psychiatrists have tied it to existential insecurity and describe it as the fear of places or situations that have triggered panic attacks. Freud believed that agoraphobia, like all phobias, was part of an "anxiety neurosis" and had a sexual origin.
Taking as his starting-point the fact that Freud himself was agoraphobic, and analyzing the way people have negotiated open spaces from Greek and Roman times to the present day, Paul Carter finds that "space fear" ultimately results from the inhibition of movement. Along the way, the author asks why Freud repressed his agoraphobia, and examines literature, the work of architects and theorists – including Le Corbusier, Walter Benjamin and R. D. Laing – artists such as Munch, Lapique and Giacometti, and the German "street films" of the 1920s. He concludes by proposing a new way of regarding open space, a new "poetics of agoraphobia", one that is sensitive to the agoraphobe’s point of view and provides lessons for architects and urban planners today.
Taking as his starting-point the fact that Freud himself was agoraphobic, and analyzing the way people have negotiated open spaces from Greek and Roman times to the present day, Paul Carter finds that "space fear" ultimately results from the inhibition of movement. Along the way, the author asks why Freud repressed his agoraphobia, and examines literature, the work of architects and theorists – including Le Corbusier, Walter Benjamin and R. D. Laing – artists such as Munch, Lapique and Giacometti, and the German "street films" of the 1920s. He concludes by proposing a new way of regarding open space, a new "poetics of agoraphobia", one that is sensitive to the agoraphobe’s point of view and provides lessons for architects and urban planners today.
[more]
Most Unimaginably Strange
An Eclectic Companion to the Landscape of Iceland
Chris Caseldine
Reaktion Books, 2022
For all who yearn to travel to the home of the sagas, a beautifully illustrated companion to the terrain of Iceland—from puffins to ponies, glaciers and volcanoes to legendary trolls.
Described by William Morris as “most unimaginably strange,” the landscape of Iceland has fascinated and inspired travelers, scientists, artists, and writers throughout history. This book provides a contemporary understanding of the landscape as a whole, not only its iconic glaciers and volcanoes, but also its deserts, canyons, plants, and animals. The book examines historic and modern scientific studies of the landscape and animals, as well as accounts of early visitors to the land. These were captivating people, some eccentric but most drawn to Iceland by an enthrallment with all things northern, a desire to experience the land of the sagas, or plain scientific and touristic curiosity. Featuring many spectacular illustrations, this is a fine exploration of a most singular landscape.
Described by William Morris as “most unimaginably strange,” the landscape of Iceland has fascinated and inspired travelers, scientists, artists, and writers throughout history. This book provides a contemporary understanding of the landscape as a whole, not only its iconic glaciers and volcanoes, but also its deserts, canyons, plants, and animals. The book examines historic and modern scientific studies of the landscape and animals, as well as accounts of early visitors to the land. These were captivating people, some eccentric but most drawn to Iceland by an enthrallment with all things northern, a desire to experience the land of the sagas, or plain scientific and touristic curiosity. Featuring many spectacular illustrations, this is a fine exploration of a most singular landscape.
[more]
Robert Altman
In the American Grain
Frank Caso
Reaktion Books, 2015
Known as an iconoclast and maverick, film director Robert Altman has consistently pushed against the boundaries of genre. From refashioning film noir in The Long Goodbye, the western in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the psychological drama in Images, science fiction in Quintet, and the romantic comedy in A Perfect Couple, he has always tested the limits of what film can and should do. In this book, Frank Caso examines the development of Altman’s artistic method from his earliest days in industrial film to his work in television and feature films.
Altman is one of those directors whose films audiences can easily recognize, but what exactly are the distinctive elements that have become his signature? Caso identifies more than twenty such elements in Altman’s style, tracing some—such as his use of free-hand cameras and engagement with Christian imagery—to the beginning of his career. Caso also examines Altman’s unsettling mix of offbeat comedic tone with a predominance of violence, murder, and death, showing how their counterpointing effects rendered his films at once naturalistic and otherworldly.
Exploring these and other aspects of the Altmanesque style, Caso maps the innovations that have made Altman a master filmmaker. Enriched with illustration throughout, Robert Altman will appeal to fans of this distinctive American auteur or anyone interested in ground-breaking cinema.
Altman is one of those directors whose films audiences can easily recognize, but what exactly are the distinctive elements that have become his signature? Caso identifies more than twenty such elements in Altman’s style, tracing some—such as his use of free-hand cameras and engagement with Christian imagery—to the beginning of his career. Caso also examines Altman’s unsettling mix of offbeat comedic tone with a predominance of violence, murder, and death, showing how their counterpointing effects rendered his films at once naturalistic and otherworldly.
Exploring these and other aspects of the Altmanesque style, Caso maps the innovations that have made Altman a master filmmaker. Enriched with illustration throughout, Robert Altman will appeal to fans of this distinctive American auteur or anyone interested in ground-breaking cinema.
[more]
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Journeys to the Extreme
Damian Catani
Reaktion Books, 2021
The first English-language biography in more than two decades of the French writer, one of the great novelists of the twentieth century.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was one of the most innovative novelists of the twentieth century, and his influence both in his native France and beyond remains huge. This book sheds light on Céline’s groundbreaking novels, which drew extensively on his complex life: he rose from humble beginnings to worldwide literary fame, then dramatically fell from grace only to return, belatedly, to the limelight. Céline’s subversive writing remains fresh and urgent today, despite his controversial political views and inflammatory pamphlets that threatened to ruin his reputation. The first English-language biography of Céline in more than two decades, this book explores new material and reminds us why the author belongs in the pantheon of modern greats.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was one of the most innovative novelists of the twentieth century, and his influence both in his native France and beyond remains huge. This book sheds light on Céline’s groundbreaking novels, which drew extensively on his complex life: he rose from humble beginnings to worldwide literary fame, then dramatically fell from grace only to return, belatedly, to the limelight. Céline’s subversive writing remains fresh and urgent today, despite his controversial political views and inflammatory pamphlets that threatened to ruin his reputation. The first English-language biography of Céline in more than two decades, this book explores new material and reminds us why the author belongs in the pantheon of modern greats.
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Peter Lanyon
Modernism and the Land
Andrew Causey
Reaktion Books, 2006
British painter Peter Lanyon transformed the art of landscape, rescuing it from picturesque depictions of the English countryside and resituating it as an art form capable of expressing radical ideas. The old European tradition of landscape—mostly concerned with ownership and leisure and not the daily life of the working class—was of no interest to Lanyon. His work instead reframed the consequences of war and industrialization upon a rapidly changing coastal landscape.
In Peter Lanyon, Andrew Causey sets out to explain just how this transformation occurred. Lanyon’s family resided in West Cornwall for generations, and Causey asserts that the artist’s concern with regional identity, along with his resistance to what he saw as a history of outsider exploitation of St. Ives and the surrounding areas, were integral to his art. Drawing on recent work by cultural geographers, anthropologists, and archeologists, Causey makes sense of Lanyon’s relationship to the landscape and the pre-capitalist economy of his region. Provocative and insightful, Peter Lanyon is a thoroughly illuminating examination of the modern life of a landscape artist.
In Peter Lanyon, Andrew Causey sets out to explain just how this transformation occurred. Lanyon’s family resided in West Cornwall for generations, and Causey asserts that the artist’s concern with regional identity, along with his resistance to what he saw as a history of outsider exploitation of St. Ives and the surrounding areas, were integral to his art. Drawing on recent work by cultural geographers, anthropologists, and archeologists, Causey makes sense of Lanyon’s relationship to the landscape and the pre-capitalist economy of his region. Provocative and insightful, Peter Lanyon is a thoroughly illuminating examination of the modern life of a landscape artist.
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Mina Loy
Apology of Genius
Mary Ann Caws
Reaktion Books, 2022
Featuring many rare images, an enlightening exploration of the life and work of avant-garde multihyphenate Mina Loy.
Mina Loy was born in London in 1882, became American, and lived variously in New York, Europe, and finally, Aspen until she died in 1966. Flamboyant and unapologetically avant-garde, she was a poet, painter, novelist, essayist, manifesto-writer, actress, and dress and lampshade designer. Her life involved an impossible abundance of artistic friends, performance, and spectacular adventures in the worlds of Futurism, Christian Science, feminism, fashion, and everything modern and modernist.
This new account by Mary Ann Caws explores Mina Loy’s exceptional life and features many rare images of Mina Loy and her husband, the Swiss writer, poet, artist, boxer, and provocateur Arthur Cravan—who disappeared without a trace in 1918.
Mina Loy was born in London in 1882, became American, and lived variously in New York, Europe, and finally, Aspen until she died in 1966. Flamboyant and unapologetically avant-garde, she was a poet, painter, novelist, essayist, manifesto-writer, actress, and dress and lampshade designer. Her life involved an impossible abundance of artistic friends, performance, and spectacular adventures in the worlds of Futurism, Christian Science, feminism, fashion, and everything modern and modernist.
This new account by Mary Ann Caws explores Mina Loy’s exceptional life and features many rare images of Mina Loy and her husband, the Swiss writer, poet, artist, boxer, and provocateur Arthur Cravan—who disappeared without a trace in 1918.
[more]
Pablo Picasso
Mary Ann Caws
Reaktion Books, 2005
"What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way?"
With these words, Pablo Picasso described the revolutionary methods of painting and artistic perspective with which he challenged the ways people and the world were defined. His life was a similarly complex prism of people, places, and ideologies that spanned most of the twentieth century. Acclaimed scholar Mary Ann Caws provides in Pablo Picasso a fresh and concise examination of Picasso's life and art, revisiting the themes that occupied him throughout his life and weaving these themes through his crucial close relationships.
Caws embarks on a global journey to retrace the footsteps of Picasso, giving biographical context to his work from Les Demoiselles d'Avignon through Guernica and analyzing the changes and inconsistencies in his oeuvre over the course of the twentieth century. She examines Picasso's attempts to balance various viewpoints, artistic strategies, lovers, and friends, positing the central figures of the Harlequin, the clown, and the acrobat in his art as emblematic of his actions. Gertrude Stein, Max Jacob, Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Paul Eluard, and Roland Penrose all make appearances in these pages as Caws examines their influence on Picasso. Caws also delves into Picasso's tumultuous relationships with his lovers Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, and Jacqueline Roque to understand their effects on his art.
A compelling and original portrait, Pablo Picasso offers a lively exploration into the personal networks that both challenged and sustained Picasso.
With these words, Pablo Picasso described the revolutionary methods of painting and artistic perspective with which he challenged the ways people and the world were defined. His life was a similarly complex prism of people, places, and ideologies that spanned most of the twentieth century. Acclaimed scholar Mary Ann Caws provides in Pablo Picasso a fresh and concise examination of Picasso's life and art, revisiting the themes that occupied him throughout his life and weaving these themes through his crucial close relationships.
Caws embarks on a global journey to retrace the footsteps of Picasso, giving biographical context to his work from Les Demoiselles d'Avignon through Guernica and analyzing the changes and inconsistencies in his oeuvre over the course of the twentieth century. She examines Picasso's attempts to balance various viewpoints, artistic strategies, lovers, and friends, positing the central figures of the Harlequin, the clown, and the acrobat in his art as emblematic of his actions. Gertrude Stein, Max Jacob, Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Paul Eluard, and Roland Penrose all make appearances in these pages as Caws examines their influence on Picasso. Caws also delves into Picasso's tumultuous relationships with his lovers Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, and Jacqueline Roque to understand their effects on his art.
A compelling and original portrait, Pablo Picasso offers a lively exploration into the personal networks that both challenged and sustained Picasso.
[more]
Robert Motherwell
With Pen and Brush
Mary Ann Caws
Reaktion Books, 2003
Robert Motherwell was by far the most intellectual and articulate of the Abstract Expressionists. This book, written by a friend of the artist, the well-known writer and critic Mary Ann Caws, examines Motherwell’s way of thinking and writing in relation to his paintings. The artist, American by birth, yet simultaneously American and European in his way of visualizing and vocalizing artistic and philosophical traditions, always worked between these two poles, and it is this tension that imbues his œuvre with its particular intensity.
The author bases her analysis of Motherwell on the artist’s own writings and readings, as well as on extensive conversations and interviews with him. She considers his work and interests in relation to those of other Abstract Expressionists as well as to the work of the Surrealists. Her book highlights his deep attraction to France and French literature and art, and his concern with the idea of elegy and the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War. His singularly American spirit provided him with a manner of painting and thinking unique among the Abstract Expressionists, as well as with a distinctive and highly personal filter through which to interpret his fascination with European literature and history.
The author bases her analysis of Motherwell on the artist’s own writings and readings, as well as on extensive conversations and interviews with him. She considers his work and interests in relation to those of other Abstract Expressionists as well as to the work of the Surrealists. Her book highlights his deep attraction to France and French literature and art, and his concern with the idea of elegy and the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War. His singularly American spirit provided him with a manner of painting and thinking unique among the Abstract Expressionists, as well as with a distinctive and highly personal filter through which to interpret his fascination with European literature and history.
[more]
Salvador Dalí
Mary Ann Caws
Reaktion Books, 2008
“Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure—that of being Salvador Dalí.”
He was a force unto himself, an icon of outrageousness, artistic brilliance, eccentricity, and unmistakable style. Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domènech, Marquis of Pubol, was one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century, and in this concise narrative acclaimed art historian Mary Ann Caws provides a sharply written survey of his life and work.
Salvador Dalí examines every twist and turn in Dalí’s long and multifaceted career and the pivotal artistic movements at whose center he stood. From his early life in the Catalan region and his expulsions from the School of Fine Arts in Madrid and other schools to the surrealist movement and his work with Buñuel on the films Un chein andalou and L’Âge d’or, Caws charts Dalí’s influences and creative process. Dalí’s turbulent personal life brought him in contact with a rich assortment of intellectual figures, and Caws considers his relationships with his family; his lovers, including the married Elena Diakonova; and with friends such as poet Federico Garcia Lorca. His writings, drawings, photography, and painted works offer up new clues about the artist under Caws’s incisive eye, as she analyzes his lesser-known writings and creative works, as well as his Surrealist paintings and “hand-painted dream photographs” such as The Persistence of Memory.
A masterfully written biographical study, Salvador Dalí paints an arresting portrait of one of the most elusive artists of our time.
[more]
Symbolism, Dada, Surrealisms
Selected Writing of Mary Ann Caws
Mary Ann Caws
Reaktion Books
A collection of highlights from Mary Ann Caws’s long, highly distinguished career writing about literature, art, and modernism.
Throughout her long, highly distinguished career writing about literature and art, Mary Ann Caws has excavated, illuminated, and examined in depth the most intriguing works and personalities of Symbolism, Dada, Surrealism, and beyond. In these concise, but always colorful and insightful articles, Caws brings us fresh portraits of the most famous figures and introduces us to the writers and artists who merit more attention than they’ve received, with a special focus on female writers and artists. The author’s sensitivity to the intersections of eccentric literature and eccentric life infuses each critical essay with the human passions that these essential modernists lived. From Dickinson and Mallarmé to Duchamp and Mina Loy, Caws applies the art of close looking to shrewdly framed slices of the modernist experience.
Throughout her long, highly distinguished career writing about literature and art, Mary Ann Caws has excavated, illuminated, and examined in depth the most intriguing works and personalities of Symbolism, Dada, Surrealism, and beyond. In these concise, but always colorful and insightful articles, Caws brings us fresh portraits of the most famous figures and introduces us to the writers and artists who merit more attention than they’ve received, with a special focus on female writers and artists. The author’s sensitivity to the intersections of eccentric literature and eccentric life infuses each critical essay with the human passions that these essential modernists lived. From Dickinson and Mallarmé to Duchamp and Mina Loy, Caws applies the art of close looking to shrewdly framed slices of the modernist experience.
[more]
Blaise Pascal
Miracles and Reason
Mary Ann Caws
Reaktion Books, 2017
Few people have had as many influences on as many different fields as true Renaissance man Blaise Pascal. At once a mathematician, philosopher, theologian, physicist, and engineer, Pascal’s discoveries, experiments, and theories helped usher in a modern world of scientific thought and methodology. In this singular book on this singular genius, distinguished scholar Mary Ann Caws explores the rich contributions of this extraordinary thinker, interweaving his writings and discoveries with an account of his life and career and the wider intellectual world of his time.
Caws takes us back to Pascal’s youth, when he was a child prodigy first engaging mathematics through the works of mathematicians such as Father Mersenne. She describes his early scientific experiments and his construction of mechanical calculating machines; she looks at his correspondence with important thinkers such as René Descartes and Pierre de Fermat; she surveys his many inventions, such as the first means of public transportation in Paris; and she considers his later religious exaltations in works such as the “Memorial.” Along the way, Caws examines Pascal’s various modes of writing—whether he is arguing with the strict puritanical modes of church politics, assuming the personality of a naïve provincial trying to understand the Jesuitical approach, offering pithy aphorisms in the Pensées, or meditating on thinking about thinking itself.
Altogether, this book lays side by side many aspects of Pascal’s life and work that are seldom found in a single volume: his religious motivations and faith, his scientific passions, and his practical savvy. The result is a comprehensive but easily approachable account of a fascinating and influential figure.
Caws takes us back to Pascal’s youth, when he was a child prodigy first engaging mathematics through the works of mathematicians such as Father Mersenne. She describes his early scientific experiments and his construction of mechanical calculating machines; she looks at his correspondence with important thinkers such as René Descartes and Pierre de Fermat; she surveys his many inventions, such as the first means of public transportation in Paris; and she considers his later religious exaltations in works such as the “Memorial.” Along the way, Caws examines Pascal’s various modes of writing—whether he is arguing with the strict puritanical modes of church politics, assuming the personality of a naïve provincial trying to understand the Jesuitical approach, offering pithy aphorisms in the Pensées, or meditating on thinking about thinking itself.
Altogether, this book lays side by side many aspects of Pascal’s life and work that are seldom found in a single volume: his religious motivations and faith, his scientific passions, and his practical savvy. The result is a comprehensive but easily approachable account of a fascinating and influential figure.
[more]
Petrarch
Everywhere a Wanderer
Christopher S. Celenza
Reaktion Books, 2022
An enlightening study of the contradictory character of this canonical fourteenth-century Italian poet.
Born in Tuscany in 1304, Italian poet Francesco Petrarca is widely considered one of the fathers of the modern Italian language. Though his writings inspired the humanist movement and subsequently the Renaissance, Petrarch remains misunderstood. He was a man of contradictions—a Roman pagan devotee and a devout Christian, a lover of friendship and sociability, yet intensely private.
In this biography, Christopher S. Celenza revisits Petrarch’s life and work for the first time in decades, considering how the scholar’s reputation and identity have changed since his death in 1374. He brings to light Petrarch’s unrequited love for his poetic muse, the anti-institutional attitude he developed as he sought a path to modernity by looking backward to antiquity, and his endless focus on himself. Drawing on both Petrarch’s Italian and Latin writings, this is a revealing portrait of a figure of paradoxes: a man of mystique, historical importance, and endless fascination. It is the only book on Petrarch suitable for students, general readers, and scholars alike.
Born in Tuscany in 1304, Italian poet Francesco Petrarca is widely considered one of the fathers of the modern Italian language. Though his writings inspired the humanist movement and subsequently the Renaissance, Petrarch remains misunderstood. He was a man of contradictions—a Roman pagan devotee and a devout Christian, a lover of friendship and sociability, yet intensely private.
In this biography, Christopher S. Celenza revisits Petrarch’s life and work for the first time in decades, considering how the scholar’s reputation and identity have changed since his death in 1374. He brings to light Petrarch’s unrequited love for his poetic muse, the anti-institutional attitude he developed as he sought a path to modernity by looking backward to antiquity, and his endless focus on himself. Drawing on both Petrarch’s Italian and Latin writings, this is a revealing portrait of a figure of paradoxes: a man of mystique, historical importance, and endless fascination. It is the only book on Petrarch suitable for students, general readers, and scholars alike.
[more]
Strokes of Genius
A History of Swimming
Eric Chaline
Reaktion Books, 2017
What could be better than diving into cool water on a hot day? In this enormously enjoyable and informative history of swimming, Eric Chaline sums up this most summery of moments with one phrase: pleasure beckons at the water’s edge.
Strokes of Genius traces the history of swimming from the first civilizations to its current worldwide popularity as a sport, fitness pastime, and leisure activity. Chaline explores swimming’s role in ritual, early trade and manufacturing, warfare, and medicine, before describing its transformation in the early modern period into a leisure activity and a competitive sport—the necessary precursors that have made it the most common physical pastime in the developed world.
The book celebrates the physicality and sensuality of swimming—attributes that Chaline argues could have contributed to the evolution of the human species. Swimming, like other disciplines that use repetitive movements to train the body and quiet the mind, is also a means of spiritual awakening—a personal journey of discovery. Swimming has attained the status of a cultural marker, denoting eroticism, leisure, endurance, adventure, exploration, and excellence.
Strokes of Genius shows that there is not a single story of human swimming, but many currents that merge, diverge, and remerge. Chaline argues that swimming will become particularly important as we look toward a warmer future in which our survival may depend on our ability to adapt to life in an aquatic world.
Strokes of Genius traces the history of swimming from the first civilizations to its current worldwide popularity as a sport, fitness pastime, and leisure activity. Chaline explores swimming’s role in ritual, early trade and manufacturing, warfare, and medicine, before describing its transformation in the early modern period into a leisure activity and a competitive sport—the necessary precursors that have made it the most common physical pastime in the developed world.
The book celebrates the physicality and sensuality of swimming—attributes that Chaline argues could have contributed to the evolution of the human species. Swimming, like other disciplines that use repetitive movements to train the body and quiet the mind, is also a means of spiritual awakening—a personal journey of discovery. Swimming has attained the status of a cultural marker, denoting eroticism, leisure, endurance, adventure, exploration, and excellence.
Strokes of Genius shows that there is not a single story of human swimming, but many currents that merge, diverge, and remerge. Chaline argues that swimming will become particularly important as we look toward a warmer future in which our survival may depend on our ability to adapt to life in an aquatic world.
[more]
The Temple of Perfection
A History of the Gym
Eric Chaline
Reaktion Books, 2015
These days there is only one right answer when someone asks you what you are doing after work. Hitting the gym! With an explosion of apps, clothing, devices, and countless DVDs, fitness has never felt more modern, and the gym is its holy laboratory, alive with machinery, sweat, and dance music. But we are far from the first to pursue bodily perfection—the gymnasium dates back 2,800 years, to the very beginnings of Western civilization. In The Temple of Perfection, Eric Chaline offers the first proper consideration of the gym’s complex, layered history and the influence it has had on the development of Western individualism, society, education, and politics.
As Chaline shows, how we take care of our bodies has long been based on a complex mix of spiritual beliefs, moral discipline, and aesthetic ideals that are all entangled with political, social, and sexual power. Today, training in a gym is seen primarily as part of the pursuit of individual fulfillment. As he shows, however, the gym has always had a secondary role in creating men and women who are “fit for purpose”—a notion that has meant a lot of different things throughout history. Chaline surveys the gym’s many incarnations and the ways the individual, the nation-state, the media, and the corporate world have intersected in its steamy confines, sometimes with unintended consequences. He shows that the gym is far more than a factory for superficiality and self-obsession—it is one of the principle battlefields of humanity’s social, sexual, and cultural wars.
Exploring the gym’s history from a multitude of perspectives, Chaline concludes by looking toward its future as it struggles to redefine itself in a world in thrall to quick fixes—such as plastic surgery and pharmaceuticals—meant to attain the gym’s ultimate promises: physical fitness and beauty.
As Chaline shows, how we take care of our bodies has long been based on a complex mix of spiritual beliefs, moral discipline, and aesthetic ideals that are all entangled with political, social, and sexual power. Today, training in a gym is seen primarily as part of the pursuit of individual fulfillment. As he shows, however, the gym has always had a secondary role in creating men and women who are “fit for purpose”—a notion that has meant a lot of different things throughout history. Chaline surveys the gym’s many incarnations and the ways the individual, the nation-state, the media, and the corporate world have intersected in its steamy confines, sometimes with unintended consequences. He shows that the gym is far more than a factory for superficiality and self-obsession—it is one of the principle battlefields of humanity’s social, sexual, and cultural wars.
Exploring the gym’s history from a multitude of perspectives, Chaline concludes by looking toward its future as it struggles to redefine itself in a world in thrall to quick fixes—such as plastic surgery and pharmaceuticals—meant to attain the gym’s ultimate promises: physical fitness and beauty.
[more]
Arc of Utopia
The Beautiful Story of the Russian Revolution
Lesley Chamberlain
Reaktion Books, 2017
Although Lenin and his fellow revolutionaries never called themselves Utopians—believing strictly in a science of revolution, they considered Utopians to be merely dreamers—they were enormously inspired by the grand humanitarian aims of the French Revolution of 1789. Taking up this French revolutionary agenda and reinforcing it with German philosophy, Russians formed a beautiful vision in which an imaginary theology blended with a premier role for art.
Arc of Utopia offers a fresh look at these German philosophical origins of the Russian Revolution. In the book, Lesley Chamberlain explains how influential German philosophers like Kant, Schiller, and Hegel were dazzled by contemporary events in Paris, and how this led a century later to an explosion of art and philosophy in the Russian streets, with a long-repressed people reinventing liberty, equality, and fraternity in their own cultural image. Chamberlain examines how some of the greatest Russian names of the nineteenth-century—from Alexander Herzen to Mikhail Bakunin, Ivan Turgenev to Fyodor Dostoevsky—defined their visions for Russia in relationship to their views on German enthusiasm for revolutionary France.
With the centenary of the Russian Revolution approaching, Arc of Utopia is an important and timely revisioning of this tumultuous moment in history.
Arc of Utopia offers a fresh look at these German philosophical origins of the Russian Revolution. In the book, Lesley Chamberlain explains how influential German philosophers like Kant, Schiller, and Hegel were dazzled by contemporary events in Paris, and how this led a century later to an explosion of art and philosophy in the Russian streets, with a long-repressed people reinventing liberty, equality, and fraternity in their own cultural image. Chamberlain examines how some of the greatest Russian names of the nineteenth-century—from Alexander Herzen to Mikhail Bakunin, Ivan Turgenev to Fyodor Dostoevsky—defined their visions for Russia in relationship to their views on German enthusiasm for revolutionary France.
With the centenary of the Russian Revolution approaching, Arc of Utopia is an important and timely revisioning of this tumultuous moment in history.
[more]
Street Life and Morals
German Philosophy in Hitler’s Lifetime
Lesley Chamberlain
Reaktion Books, 2021
With resonance for today, this book explores a significant crisis of German philosophy and national identity in the decades around World War II.
German philosophy, famed for its high-minded Idealism, was plunged into crisis when Germany became an urban and industrial society in the late nineteenth century. The key figure of this shift was Immanuel Kant: seen for a century as the philosophical father of the nation, Kant seemed to lack crucial answers for violent and impersonal modern times. This book shows that the social and intellectual crisis that overturned Germany’s traditions—a sense of profound spiritual confusion over where modern society was headed—was the same crisis that allowed Hitler to come to power. It also describes how German philosophers actively struggled to create a new kind of philosophy in an effort to understand social incoherence and technology’s diminishing of the individual.
German philosophy, famed for its high-minded Idealism, was plunged into crisis when Germany became an urban and industrial society in the late nineteenth century. The key figure of this shift was Immanuel Kant: seen for a century as the philosophical father of the nation, Kant seemed to lack crucial answers for violent and impersonal modern times. This book shows that the social and intellectual crisis that overturned Germany’s traditions—a sense of profound spiritual confusion over where modern society was headed—was the same crisis that allowed Hitler to come to power. It also describes how German philosophers actively struggled to create a new kind of philosophy in an effort to understand social incoherence and technology’s diminishing of the individual.
[more]
Countering Terrorism
Can We Meet the Threat of Global Violence?
Michael Chandler
Reaktion Books, 2008
Five years after 9/11, we question whether or not terrorist activity has actually decreased. Terrorist networks still span the globe and, some argue, they are more powerful than ever. Yet in this era of rigid security and U.S.-led wars on multiple continents, countries are at odds about how to deal with the looming threat—and chaotic aftermath—of terrorist acts. In Countering Terrorism, Rohan Gunaratna and Michael Chandler sift through political commentary, military maneuvering, and the tangled web of international diplomacy to put us on alert: The world has missed a prime opportunity to crush terrorism.
Chandler and Gunaratna are among the world’s foremost experts on international terrorism, having logged between them over forty years of firsthand experience in the field and planning rooms, analyzing and dealing with an unceasing succession of terrorist threats and conflicts. Chandler and Gunaratna employ their unparalleled expertise to probe the catastrophic attacks so indelibly seared into the history of the early twenty-first century, from 9/11 to the Madrid bombings to deadly strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, and elsewhere. They ask the hard questions we never hear on nightly newscasts: Why has the overall response to terrorism after 9/11 been “so abysmal, slow, piecemeal, and to a large extent far from effective?” Why have some countries, despite international criticism, disregarded universally accepted humanitarian norms when handling the prosecution of terrorist suspects?
By allowing politics to trump the need for trans-national cooperation, the authors contend, the international community—and particularly the United States—has squandered an opportunity to combat terrorism with a united and powerful force. Thus what should have been a watershed moment in international relations vanished as effective long-term policies were shunned in favor of short-term political expediency.
From arguing the Iraq War has been a “strategic defeat” to Afghanistan’s struggle against the Taliban to the rapidly growing geopolitical role of Iran, Countering Terrorism investigates the reality of the changes that followed the bombings and attacks and examines global terrorism from every angle, including the social and economic underpinnings of terror networks. Scholars, experts, and citizens have appealed for a re-evaluation of today’s increasingly ineffective “War on Terror” policies, and Chandler and Gunaratna answer this call with clear and concise proposals for future dealings with global terrorism.
The projected end results of the wars, terrorist attacks, and political upheavals tearing nations apart today are rarely anything but bleak. But Countering Terrorism challenges today’s chaotic status quo, offering penetrating analysis and a radically new perspective essential to grappling with the complexities of terrorist activity and counterintelligence today.
"A timely book that fills a lacuna in the counter-terrorism literature and has to be on the bookshelf of any decision-maker, scholar, student and anyone who is interested in understanding the current and the future trends of international terrorism and the strategies that has to be taken to combat this threat."--Dr. Boaz Ganor, author of The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decisionmakers
[more]
Psyche on the Skin
A History of Self-Harm
Sarah Chaney
Reaktion Books, 2019
It’s a troubling phenomenon that many of us think of as a modern psychological epidemic, a symptom of extreme emotional turmoil in young people, especially young women: cutting and self-harm. But few of us know that it was 150 years ago—with the introduction of institutional asylum psychiatry—that self-mutilation was first described as a category of behavior, which psychiatrists, and later psychologists and social workers, attempted to understand. With care and focus, Psyche on the Skin tells the secret but necessary history of self-harm from the 1860s to the present, showing just how deeply entrenched this practice is in human culture.
Sarah Chaney looks at many different kinds of self-injurious acts, including sexual self-mutilation and hysterical malingering in the late Victorian period, self-marking religious sects, and self-mutilation and self-destruction in art, music, and popular culture. As she shows, while self-harm is a widespread phenomenon found in many different contexts, it doesn’t necessarily have any kind of universal meaning—it always has to be understood within the historical and cultural context that surrounds it. Bravely sharing her own personal experiences with self-harm and placing them within its wider history, Chaney offers a sensitive but engaging account—supported with powerful images—that challenges the misconceptions and controversies that surround this often misunderstood phenomenon. The result is crucial reading for therapists and other professionals in the field, as well as those affected by this emotive, challenging act.
Sarah Chaney looks at many different kinds of self-injurious acts, including sexual self-mutilation and hysterical malingering in the late Victorian period, self-marking religious sects, and self-mutilation and self-destruction in art, music, and popular culture. As she shows, while self-harm is a widespread phenomenon found in many different contexts, it doesn’t necessarily have any kind of universal meaning—it always has to be understood within the historical and cultural context that surrounds it. Bravely sharing her own personal experiences with self-harm and placing them within its wider history, Chaney offers a sensitive but engaging account—supported with powerful images—that challenges the misconceptions and controversies that surround this often misunderstood phenomenon. The result is crucial reading for therapists and other professionals in the field, as well as those affected by this emotive, challenging act.
[more]
British Comics
A Cultural History
James Chapman
Reaktion Books, 2024
Arguing that British comics are distinct from their international counterparts, a unique showcase of the major role they have played in the imaginative lives of British youth—and some adults.
In this entertaining cultural history of British comic papers and magazines, James Chapman shows how comics were transformed in the early twentieth century from adult amusement to imaginative reading matter for children.
Beginning with the first British comic, Ally Sloper—known as “A Selection, Side-splitting, Sentimental, and Serious, for the Benefit of Old Boys, Young Boys, Odd Boys generally, and even Girls”—British Comics goes on to describe the heyday of comics in the 1950s and ’60s, when titles such as School Friend and Eagle sold a million copies a week. Chapman also analyzes the major genres, including schoolgirl fantasies and sports and war stories for boys; the development of a new breed of violent comics in the 1970s, including the controversial Action and 2000AD; and the attempt by American publisher, Marvel, to launch a new hero for the British market in the form of Captain Britain. Considering the work of important contemporary comic writers such as Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Ian Edginton, Warren Ellis, and Garth Ennis, Chapman’s history comes right up to the present and takes in adult-oriented comics such as Warrior, Crisis, Deadline,and Revolver, and alternative comics such as Viz.
Through a look at the changing structure of the comic publishing industry and how comic publishers, writers, and artists have responded to the tastes of their consumers, Chapman ultimately argues that British comics are distinctive and different from American, French, and Japanese comics. An invaluable reference for all comic collectors and fans in Britain and beyond, British Comics showcases the major role comics have played in the imaginative lives of readers young and old.
[more]
Cinemas of the World
Film and Society from 1895 to the Present
James Chapman
Reaktion Books, 2003
The cinema has been the pre-eminent popular art form of the 20th century. In Cinemas of the World, James Chapman examines the relationship between film and society in the modern world: film as entertainment medium, film as a reflection of national cultures and preoccupations, film as an instrument of propaganda. He also explores two interrelated issues that have recurred throughout the history of cinema: the economic and cultural hegemony of Hollywood on the one hand, and, on the other, the attempts of film-makers elsewhere to establish indigenous national cinemas drawing on their own cultures and societies.
Chapman examines the rise to dominance of Hollywood cinema in the silent and early sound periods. He discusses the characteristic themes of American movies from the Depression to the end of the Cold War especially those found in the western and film noir – genres that are often used as vehicles for exploring issues central to us society and politics. He looks at national cinemas in various European countries in the period between the end of the First World War and the end of the Second, which all exhibit the formal and aesthetic properties of modernism. The emergence of the so-called "new cinemas" of Europe and the wider world since 1960 are also explored.
"Chapman is a tough-thinking, original writer . . . an engaging, excellent piece of work."—David Lancaster, Film and History
Chapman examines the rise to dominance of Hollywood cinema in the silent and early sound periods. He discusses the characteristic themes of American movies from the Depression to the end of the Cold War especially those found in the western and film noir – genres that are often used as vehicles for exploring issues central to us society and politics. He looks at national cinemas in various European countries in the period between the end of the First World War and the end of the Second, which all exhibit the formal and aesthetic properties of modernism. The emergence of the so-called "new cinemas" of Europe and the wider world since 1960 are also explored.
"Chapman is a tough-thinking, original writer . . . an engaging, excellent piece of work."—David Lancaster, Film and History
[more]
War and Film
James Chapman
Reaktion Books, 2008
From the onset of the film medium, directors have found war an endlessly compelling and fruitful subject for their art. In War and Film, Chapman explores their fascination as well as audiences’ enduring need to examine and experience the vicissitudes of war.
Chapman examines the issues of truthfulness and realism that arise in depictions of war, whether in the supposed truth telling of war documentaries or Hollywood battle scenes that are “more realistic than the real thing.” The book considers films from the U. S., Britain, and Europe, and the national responses to cinematic depictions of particular conflicts. In case studies of such legendary works as Das Boot, Apocalypse Now, and All Quiet on the Western Front, the book parses their dominant narrative themes, ranging from war as a pointless tragedy to combat as an exciting and heroic adventure. But few films, Chapman contends, probe into the deeper ramifications of war—the psychological scars left on the soldier and civilians.
A study of remarkable breadth and scope, War and Film exposes the power of cinema in shaping our perceptions of violent conflict.
[more]
The Medieval Scriptorium
Making Books in the Middle Ages
Sara J. Charles
Reaktion Books, 2024
Illuminated with illustrations, an exploration of medieval manuscript production that offers insight into both the early history of the book and life in the Middle Ages.
This book takes the reader on an immersive journey through medieval manuscript production in the Latin Christian world. Each chapter opens with a lively vignette by a medieval narrator—including a parchment maker, scribe, and illuminator—introducing various aspects of manuscript production. Sara J. Charles poses the question “What actually is a scriptorium?” and explores the development of the medieval scriptorium from its early Christian beginnings through to its eventual decline and the growth of the printing press.
With the written word at the very heart of the Christian monastic movement, we see the immense amount of labor, planning, and networks needed to produce each manuscript. By tapping into these processes and procedures, The Medieval Scriptorium helps us to experience medieval life through the lens of a manuscript maker.
This book takes the reader on an immersive journey through medieval manuscript production in the Latin Christian world. Each chapter opens with a lively vignette by a medieval narrator—including a parchment maker, scribe, and illuminator—introducing various aspects of manuscript production. Sara J. Charles poses the question “What actually is a scriptorium?” and explores the development of the medieval scriptorium from its early Christian beginnings through to its eventual decline and the growth of the printing press.
With the written word at the very heart of the Christian monastic movement, we see the immense amount of labor, planning, and networks needed to produce each manuscript. By tapping into these processes and procedures, The Medieval Scriptorium helps us to experience medieval life through the lens of a manuscript maker.
[more]
Derek Jarman
Michael Charlesworth
Reaktion Books, 2011
Derek Jarman (1942–94) is known as one of Europe’s greatest independent film-makers; his films call into question and reconsider the nature of filmmaking itself. But, as Michael Charlesworth shows in this new biography, Jarman was also a painter, writer, gardener, set designer, and an influential campaigner for gay rights and other social causes.
Charlesworth discusses the entire diverse range of Jarman’s works in order to provide a thorough portrait from childhood to his untimely death. Charlesworth is the first scholar to properly integrate Jarman’s paintings and writings with his films, demonstrating the strong connections between his varied areas of artistic practice. He also draws invaluable insights from Jarmon’s extraordinary series of journals that offer a look into the nature of the society in which he lived, as well as his own creative process. And through the thoughts and memories of Jarman’s friends, Charlesworth reveals how Jarman was an important voice on behalf of many—one who espoused love and friendship, while fearlessly campaigning for the virtues and the value of art in an often hostile and unappreciative political and social atmosphere.
Fresh in its conclusions and engaging in style, Derek Jarman is an accessible and thought-provoking analysis of Jarman’s phenomenal creativity and a perfect complement to Jarman’s works.
[more]
Crab
Cynthia Chris
Reaktion Books, 2021
What is a crab? What significance do crabs play in the world? In Crab, Cynthia Chris reveals that these charming creatures are social by nature, creative problem-solvers, and invaluable members of the environments in which they live. Their formidable physical forms, their hard-to-harvest and quick-to-spoil flesh, and their sassy demeanor have inspired artists and writers from Vincent van Gogh to Jean-Paul Sartre. Chris sketches vivid portraits of these animals, tracing the history of the crab through its ancient fossil record to its essential role in protecting its own habitats from the threat of climate change.
[more]
Cuckoo
Cynthia Chris
Reaktion Books, 2024
An entertaining and wide-ranging romp through the cultural history of a peculiar bird.
The cuckoo is peculiar for inspiring such divergent ideas: a symbol of foolishness to both Aristophanes and Cocoa Puffs, a reliable harbinger of spring and the hours of a cuckoo clock, and the source of innumerable innuendos inspired by a habit of laying eggs in others’ nests. In this short, entertaining book, Cynthia Chris explores both the natural and cultural history of the cuckoo as well as the many stories told throughout the centuries about this fascinating bird.
The cuckoo is peculiar for inspiring such divergent ideas: a symbol of foolishness to both Aristophanes and Cocoa Puffs, a reliable harbinger of spring and the hours of a cuckoo clock, and the source of innumerable innuendos inspired by a habit of laying eggs in others’ nests. In this short, entertaining book, Cynthia Chris explores both the natural and cultural history of the cuckoo as well as the many stories told throughout the centuries about this fascinating bird.
[more]
Tycho Brahe and the Measure of the Heavens
John Robert Christianson
Reaktion Books, 2020
The Danish aristocrat and astronomer Tycho Brahe personified the inventive vitality of Renaissance life in the sixteenth century. Brahe lost his nose in a student duel, wrote Latin poetry, and built one of the most astonishing villas of the late Renaissance, while virtually inventing team research and establishing the fundamental rules of empirical science. His observatory at Uraniborg functioned as a satellite to Hamlet’s castle of Kronborg until Tycho abandoned it to end his days at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. This illustrated biography presents a new and dynamic view of Tycho’s life, reassessing his gradual separation of astrology from astronomy and his key relationships with Johannes Kepler, his sister Sophie, and his kinsmen at the court of King Frederick II.
[more]
Water and Art
David Clarke
Reaktion Books, 2010
Restless, protean, fluid, evanescent—despite being a challenge to represent visually, water has gained a striking significance in the art of the twentieth century. This may be due to the fact that it allows for a range of metaphorical meanings, many of which are particularly appropriate to the modern age. Water is not merely a subject of contemporary art, but also a material increasingly used in art-making, giving it a distinct dual presence.
Water and Art probes the ways in which water has gained an unprecedented prominence in modern Western art and seeks to draw connections to its depiction in earlier art forms. David Clarke looks across cultures, finding parallels within contemporary Chinese art, which draws on a cultural tradition in which water has an essential presence and is used as both a subject and a medium. The book features a wealth of images by artists from East and West, including Fu Baoshi, Shi Tao, Wei Zixi, Fang Rending, Leonardo da Vinci, Bernini, Turner, Gericault, Klee, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Mondrian, and Kandinsky.
Fast-paced, accessible, and comprehensive, Water and Art will appeal to the specialist and the general reader alike, offering fresh perspectives on familiar artists as well as an introduction to others who are less well-known.
[more]
Portrait In Photography
Graham Clarke
Reaktion Books, 1992
The photographic portrait is discussed in a wide context, from general subjects such as the family photograph album and American portrait photography to the work of individual artists like Sander and Stieglitz.
[more]
Pie
A Global History
Janet Clarkson
Reaktion Books, 2009
Apple pie. Pumpkin pie. Shepherd’s pie. Chicken potpie. Sweet or savory, pies are beloved; everyone has a favorite. Yet despite its widespread appeal there has never been a book devoted to this humble dish—until now.
Janet Clarkson in Pie illustrates how what was once a purely pragmatic dish of thick layers of dough has grown into an esteemed creation of culinary art. There is as much debate about how to perfect the ideal, flaky pastry crust as there is about the very definition of a pie: Must it have a top and bottom crust? Is a pasty a pie? In flavorful detail, Clarkson celebrates the pie in all its variations. She touches pon the pie’s commercial applications, nutritional value, and cultural significance; and she examines its international variations, from Britain’s pork pie and Australia and New Zealand’s endless varieties of meat pie to the Russian kurnik and good old-fashioned American apple pie.
This delectable salute to the many pies enjoyed the world over will satisfy the appetites of all readers hungry for culinary history and curious about the many varieties of this delightful food, and it just might inspire them to don aprons and head for the stove.
[more]
Soup
A Global History
Janet Clarkson
Reaktion Books, 2010
From the restorative powers of chicken soup on a sick day to the warmth of a bowl of chowder on a wintry night, there is no food quite as comforting and emblematic of home as soup. Soup, as Janet Clarkson tells us, is the first true culinary creation of humanity, and it has made a long journey from the prehistoric cave to the kitchen table and the white linens of Michelin-starred restaurants.
Tracing its myriad reinventions through history and across the globe, Clarkson argues in Soup that it is the only truly universal dish—every culture in the world makes soup, and it is widely valued as a dish adaptable for any situation. From the swill of the poorhouse to the most delicately crafted consommé, Clarkson explores how soup got its name and describes the different roles of soup in Eastern and Western cuisine. Featuring the national soups of many countries and including an assortment of anecdotes and recipes taken from seven centuries of culinary history, Soup entertains as much as it informs, telling of how the history of the restaurant itself is intricately interwoven with the very concept of soup.
“With enthusiasm and detailed research, Clarkson’s entertaining history is a nutrient-rich meal for the mind, sure to be devoured as happily as its subject”—Publishers Weekly, on Clarkson’s Pie
[more]
Empire of Great Brightness
Visual and Material Cultures of Ming China, 1368-1644
Craig Clunas
Reaktion Books, 2007
Empire of Great Brightness is an innovative and accessible history of a high point in Chinese culture as explored through the riches of its images and objects. Emphasizing the vibrant interactions between China and the rest of Asia at this period, it challenges notions of Ming China as a culture closed off from the rest of the world. Eminent historian Craig Clunas uses a wide range of pictures and objects from Ming China to illustrate areas such as painting and ceramics. He also draws on items like weapons and textiles from public and private collections, as well as contemporary sources from government edicts to novels, to illuminate this most diverse period of Chinese art and culture. Empire of Great Brightness offers a varied and stimulating resource for scholars of China’s cultural history, historians and art historians of related aspects of the early modern world, and readers who are intrigued by China’s past.
“An excellent companion for the study of Ming art, as well as giving established scholars food for thought and engaging in Ming Chinese culture.”—Art Newspaper
“This is an eminently readable history of the high point of Chinese cultures, seen through the riches of its images and objects.”—Asian Art Survey
[more]
Fruitful Sites
Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China
Craig Clunas
Reaktion Books, 1996
Gardens are sites that can be at one and the same time admired works of art and valuable pieces of real estate. As the first account in English to be wholly based on contemporary Chinese sources, this beautifully illustrated book grounds the practices of garden-making in Ming Dynasty China (1369–1644) firmly in the social and cultural history of the day.
Who owned gardens? Who visited them? How were they represented in words, in paintings and in visual culture generally, and what meanings did these representations hold at different levels of Chinese society? Drawing on a wide range of recent work in cultural theory, Craig Clunas provides for the first time a historical and materialist account of Chinese garden culture, and replaces broad generalizations and orientalist fantasy with a convincing picture of the garden's role in social life.
Who owned gardens? Who visited them? How were they represented in words, in paintings and in visual culture generally, and what meanings did these representations hold at different levels of Chinese society? Drawing on a wide range of recent work in cultural theory, Craig Clunas provides for the first time a historical and materialist account of Chinese garden culture, and replaces broad generalizations and orientalist fantasy with a convincing picture of the garden's role in social life.
[more]
Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China
Craig Clunas
Reaktion Books, 2005
Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China is not simply a survey of sixteenth-century images, but rather, a thorough and thoughtful examination of visual culture in China's Ming Dynasty, one that considers images wherever they appeared—not only paintings, but also illustrated books, maps, ceramic bowls, lacquered boxes, painted fans, and even clothing and tomb pictures.
Clunas's theory of visuality incorporates not only the image and the object upon which it is placed but also the culture which produced and purchased it. Economic changes in sixteenth-century China—the rapid expansion of trade routes and a growing class of consumers—are thus intricately bound up with the evolution of the image itself. Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China will be a touchstone for students of Chinese history, art, and culture.
Clunas's theory of visuality incorporates not only the image and the object upon which it is placed but also the culture which produced and purchased it. Economic changes in sixteenth-century China—the rapid expansion of trade routes and a growing class of consumers—are thus intricately bound up with the evolution of the image itself. Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China will be a touchstone for students of Chinese history, art, and culture.
[more]
Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China
Craig Clunas
Reaktion Books, 2005
Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China is not simply a survey of sixteenth-century images, but rather, a thorough and thoughtful examination of visual culture in China's Ming Dynasty, one that considers images wherever they appeared—not only paintings, but also illustrated books, maps, ceramic bowls, lacquered boxes, painted fans, and even clothing and tomb pictures.
Clunas's theory of visuality incorporates not only the image and the object upon which it is placed but also the culture which produced and purchased it. Economic changes in sixteenth-century China—the rapid expansion of trade routes and a growing class of consumers—are thus intricately bound up with the evolution of the image itself. Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China will be a touchstone for students of Chinese history, art, and culture.
Clunas's theory of visuality incorporates not only the image and the object upon which it is placed but also the culture which produced and purchased it. Economic changes in sixteenth-century China—the rapid expansion of trade routes and a growing class of consumers—are thus intricately bound up with the evolution of the image itself. Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China will be a touchstone for students of Chinese history, art, and culture.
[more]
Screen of Kings
Royal Art and Power in Ming China
Craig Clunas
Reaktion Books, 2013
Screen of Kings is the first book in any language to examine the cultural role of the regional aristocracy – relatives of the emperors – in Ming dynasty China (1368–1644). Through an analysis of their patronage of architecture, calligraphy, painting and other art forms, and through a study of the contents of their splendid and recently-excavated tombs, this innovative study puts the aristocracy back at the heart of accounts of China’s culture, from which they have been excluded until very recently.
Screen of Kings challenges much of the received wisdom about Ming China. Craig Clunas sheds new light on many familiar artworks, as well as work that have never before been reproduced. New archaeological discoveries have furnished the author with evidence of the lavish and spectacular lifestyles of these provincial princes and demonstrate how central the imperial family was to the high culture of the Ming era.
Written by the leading specialist in the art and culture of the Ming period, this book will illuminate a key aspect of China’s past, and will significantly alter our understanding of the Ming. It will be enjoyed by anyone with a serious interest in the history and art of this great civilization.
[more]
Salmon
Peter Coates
Reaktion Books, 2006
Every year, wild salmon travel hundreds of miles upstream. They fight fierce river currents, leap over rocks and small waterfalls, and die by the thousands of starvation, disease, and exposure to cold. Even if they surmount these obstacles, the fish risk becoming dinner for hungry predators like bears, birds, and humans. Guided by a keen sense of smell, the survivors travel to their original hatching grounds, where they breed, spawn, and quickly die.
Salmon reveals this amazing life cycle to be just part of the larger story of these fascinating fish. The cultural life of salmon, Peter Coates explains, is rich with myths about “the king of fish,” from lands as diverse as Nova Scotia, Norway, Korea, and California. Coates’s history details the salmon’s cherished symbolic meaning as well as its current status as the ignoble product of fish hatcheries. Encompassing evolutionary, ecological, and cultural perspectives, Salmon is the perfect book for anyone who has ever eaten or tried to catch this delightful—and delectable—fish.
Salmon reveals this amazing life cycle to be just part of the larger story of these fascinating fish. The cultural life of salmon, Peter Coates explains, is rich with myths about “the king of fish,” from lands as diverse as Nova Scotia, Norway, Korea, and California. Coates’s history details the salmon’s cherished symbolic meaning as well as its current status as the ignoble product of fish hatcheries. Encompassing evolutionary, ecological, and cultural perspectives, Salmon is the perfect book for anyone who has ever eaten or tried to catch this delightful—and delectable—fish.
[more]
Squirrel Nation
Reds, Greys and the Meaning of Home
Peter Coates
Reaktion Books, 2023
A wide-ranging meditation on belonging and citizenship through the story of two squirrel species in Britain.
Squirrel Nation is a history of Britain’s two species of squirrel over the past two hundred years: the much-loved, though rare, red squirrel and the less-desirable, though more populous, grey squirrel. A common resident of British gardens and parks, the grey squirrel was introduced from North America in the late nineteenth century and remains something of a foreign interloper. By examining this species’ rapid spread across Britain, Peter Coates explores timely issues of belonging, nationalism, and citizenship in Britain today. Ultimately, though people are swift to draw distinctions between British squirrels and squirrels in Britain, Squirrel Nation shows that Britain’s two squirrel species have much more in common than at first appears.
Squirrel Nation is a history of Britain’s two species of squirrel over the past two hundred years: the much-loved, though rare, red squirrel and the less-desirable, though more populous, grey squirrel. A common resident of British gardens and parks, the grey squirrel was introduced from North America in the late nineteenth century and remains something of a foreign interloper. By examining this species’ rapid spread across Britain, Peter Coates explores timely issues of belonging, nationalism, and citizenship in Britain today. Ultimately, though people are swift to draw distinctions between British squirrels and squirrels in Britain, Squirrel Nation shows that Britain’s two squirrel species have much more in common than at first appears.
[more]
A Story of Six Rivers
History, Culture and Ecology
Peter Coates
Reaktion Books, 2013
Many of the world’s major cities sprang up on the banks of rivers. Used for water, food, irrigation, transportation, and power, rivers sustain life and connect the world together, but most of us think of them simply as waterways that must be crossed on the way to another place. Using four European and two North American rivers as examples, A Story of Six Rivers considers the place of rivers in our world and emphasizes the inextricable links between history, culture, and ecology.
Peter Coates explores six rivers, chosen as examples of the types of rivers found on the planet: the Danube, the second-longest river in Europe; the Spree, which flows through Berlin; the Po, which cuts eastward across northern Italy; the Mersey in northwest England; the Yukon, which runs through Canada and Alaska; and the Los Angeles in California. Creating a series of river biographies, Coates gives voice to each of these bodies of water, exploring how rivers nurture us, provide cultural and economic opportunities, and pose threats to our everyday lives. He challenges recent narratives that paint rivers as the victims of abuse, pollution, and damage at the hands of humans, focusing on change rather than devastation. Describing how humans and rivers form a symbiotic—and sometimes mutually destructive—relationship, Coates argues that rivers illustrate the limits of human authority and that their capacity to inspire us is as strong as our ability to pollute them.
An intimate portrait of the way these bodies of water inform our lives, A Story of Six Rivers will make us reconsider the streams and tributaries we traverse each day.
[more]
Claude Debussy
David J. Code
Reaktion Books, 2010
French composer Claude Debussy (1862–1918) created music that was revolutionary, with a distinctly modern sound that highlighted the intersection of art and life. Here, in this unique biography, David J. Code explores the important moments in the development of Debussy’s literary interests that shaped his music—and in the process brings to life Debussy’s sardonic personality.
Claude Debussy presents an in-depth look at how Debussy’s love for poetry influenced his musical compositions. Code explores both Debussy’s earlier years, filled with student cantatas inspired by Verlaine and Baudelaire, as well as his later works, dominated by nationalistic pieces inspired by French Renaissance poets and composed in the lead-up to World War I. Along the way, Code looks at Debussy’s orchestral compositions and operas, inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice Maeterlinck.
This book will give readers a fresh way of listening to Debussy’s classic music by offering the most up-to-date critical analysis of the intersection of Debussy’s literary interests and musical compositions and will appeal to any reader with a love of Debussy, as well as modern music, literature, and the arts.
[more]
France
Modern Architectures in History
Jean-Louis Cohen
Reaktion Books, 2015
Everyone knows Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and the chateaux of the Loire Valley, but French architects have also produced some of the most iconic buildings of the twentieth century, playing a central role in the emergence and development of modernism. In France, Jean-Louis Cohen presents a complete narrative of the unfolding architectural modernity in the country, grappling not only with the buildings but also with the political and critical context surrounding them.
Cohen examines the developments in urban design and architecture within France, depicting the continuities and breaks in French architecture since 1900 against a broader international background. Describing the systems of architectural exchange with other countries—including Italy, Germany, Russia, and the United States—he offers a new view on the ideas, projects, and buildings otherwise so often considered only from narrow nationalistic perspectives. Cohen also maps the problematic search for a national identity against the background of European rivalries and France’s colonial past. Drawing on a wealth of recent research, this authoritatively written book will challenge the way design professionals and historians view modern French architecture.
Cohen examines the developments in urban design and architecture within France, depicting the continuities and breaks in French architecture since 1900 against a broader international background. Describing the systems of architectural exchange with other countries—including Italy, Germany, Russia, and the United States—he offers a new view on the ideas, projects, and buildings otherwise so often considered only from narrow nationalistic perspectives. Cohen also maps the problematic search for a national identity against the background of European rivalries and France’s colonial past. Drawing on a wealth of recent research, this authoritatively written book will challenge the way design professionals and historians view modern French architecture.
[more]
Spain
Modern Architectures in History
David Cohn
Reaktion Books, 2022
An investigation of the influences and evolution of modern Spain’s underappreciated, but foundational, architecture.
Spain’s remarkable twentieth-century architecture evolved against a turbulent background of revolution, civil war, dictatorship, and transition to democracy. Architecture played a key role in Spain’s struggle out of poverty and isolation, and its search for identity in the modern world.
This book examines Spanish architecture from the roots of Modernism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the present, analyzing significant figures and their works in relation to their political, social, and cultural contexts, as well as their contributions to architecture as a whole. From the austere, local Modernism of the 1920s, the influence of international trends in the ’30s, the renewed, “Organicist” Modernism of the ’50s and ’60s, to the flourishing public architecture of the late twentieth century and beyond, Spain provides a penetrating account of the country’s rich and varied built environment.
Spain’s remarkable twentieth-century architecture evolved against a turbulent background of revolution, civil war, dictatorship, and transition to democracy. Architecture played a key role in Spain’s struggle out of poverty and isolation, and its search for identity in the modern world.
This book examines Spanish architecture from the roots of Modernism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the present, analyzing significant figures and their works in relation to their political, social, and cultural contexts, as well as their contributions to architecture as a whole. From the austere, local Modernism of the 1920s, the influence of international trends in the ’30s, the renewed, “Organicist” Modernism of the ’50s and ’60s, to the flourishing public architecture of the late twentieth century and beyond, Spain provides a penetrating account of the country’s rich and varied built environment.
[more]
Crooner
Singing from the Heart from Sinatra to Nas
Alex Coles
Reaktion Books, 2023
An intimate history of the crooner in popular music from the 1950s to the present.
In this book, Alex Coles explores the history of the crooner—someone who sings close to the mic in a soft style—in popular music from the 1950s to the present. Each chapter focuses on how one song by one artist contributes to the image of the crooner in the popular imagination. The book describes the rich diversity of crooners throughout music history, including artists in disco, rock, hip-hop, and more such as Frank Sinatra, Scott Walker, Barry White, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Tom Waits, Grace Jones, Ian McCulloch, Nick Cave, and Nas. Ultimately, Coles shows how the crooner continues to connect listeners with their hidden feelings.
In this book, Alex Coles explores the history of the crooner—someone who sings close to the mic in a soft style—in popular music from the 1950s to the present. Each chapter focuses on how one song by one artist contributes to the image of the crooner in the popular imagination. The book describes the rich diversity of crooners throughout music history, including artists in disco, rock, hip-hop, and more such as Frank Sinatra, Scott Walker, Barry White, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Tom Waits, Grace Jones, Ian McCulloch, Nick Cave, and Nas. Ultimately, Coles shows how the crooner continues to connect listeners with their hidden feelings.
[more]
Mulberry
Peter Coles
Reaktion Books, 2019
Since antiquity, few trees have had a greater impact on the world’s cultures and economies than the mulberry. The sole food of the silkworm, the leaves of the mulberry brought prosperity not only to ancient China, but to all nations that learned the art of silk production. Mulberry bark was used to make the first paper, and the succulent, blood-red fruit of the black mulberry has inspired poets from Ovid to Shakespeare. The medicinal properties of all parts of the tree have been known for millennia, making it a tree of choice for medieval monastery gardens, while its anti-diabetic effects are opening exciting avenues of research today.
This sumptuously illustrated book tells the remarkable story of the mulberry tree and its migrations from China and Central Asia to almost every continent of the globe. It will appeal to all who wish to know more of the rich—and often juicy—history of this emblematic tree.
This sumptuously illustrated book tells the remarkable story of the mulberry tree and its migrations from China and Central Asia to almost every continent of the globe. It will appeal to all who wish to know more of the rich—and often juicy—history of this emblematic tree.
[more]
The Assyrians
Lost Civilizations
Paul Collins
Reaktion Books, 2024
An accessible guide to the history of the Assyrian empire from the perspective of its powerful elites.
At the height of its power near 660 BC, the Assyrian empire, centered in northern Iraq, wielded dominance from Egypt to Iran. This vast region was ruled by a series of kings who demonstrated their power with magnificent palaces adorned by sculptures depicting rituals, battles, and hunts. Established by military might, the empire thrived under the guidance of scholars who interpreted divine will and administrators who relocated tens of thousands of people to serve the state. This book relates the history of Assyria through the lens of its royal family and the officials who commissioned its buildings, art, and literature—each a critical part of the foundation for the later Babylonian and Persian empires.
At the height of its power near 660 BC, the Assyrian empire, centered in northern Iraq, wielded dominance from Egypt to Iran. This vast region was ruled by a series of kings who demonstrated their power with magnificent palaces adorned by sculptures depicting rituals, battles, and hunts. Established by military might, the empire thrived under the guidance of scholars who interpreted divine will and administrators who relocated tens of thousands of people to serve the state. This book relates the history of Assyria through the lens of its royal family and the officials who commissioned its buildings, art, and literature—each a critical part of the foundation for the later Babylonian and Persian empires.
[more]
The Sumerians
Lost Civilizations
Paul Collins
Reaktion Books, 2021
The Sumerians are widely believed to have created the world’s earliest civilization on the fertile floodplains of southern Iraq from about 3500 to 2000 BCE. They have been credited with the invention of nothing less than cities, writing, and the wheel, and therefore hold an ancient mirror to our own urban, literate world. But is this picture correct? Paul Collins reveals how the idea of a Sumerian people was assembled from the archaeological and textual evidence uncovered in Iraq and Syria over the last one hundred fifty years. Reconstructed through the biases of those who unearthed them, the Sumerians were never simply lost and found, but reinvented a number of times, both in antiquity and in the more recent past.
[more]
Shadowland
The Story of Germany Told by Its Prisoners
Sarah Colvin
Reaktion Books, 2022
A history of modern Germany told not through the lives of its leaders, but its lawbreakers.
As Nelson Mandela said, “a nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” Shadowland tells the sometimes inspiring, often painful stories of Germany’s prisoners, and thereby shines new light on Germany itself. The story begins at the end of the Second World War, in a defeated country on the edge of collapse, in which orphaned and lost children are forced into homelessness, scavenging and stealing to stay alive, often laying the foundations of a so-called criminal career. While East Germany developed detention facilities for its secret police, West Germany passed prison reform laws, which erected, in the words of a prisoner, “little asbestos walls in Hell.” Shadowland is Germany as seen through the lives, experiences, triumphs, and tragedies of its lowest citizens.
As Nelson Mandela said, “a nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” Shadowland tells the sometimes inspiring, often painful stories of Germany’s prisoners, and thereby shines new light on Germany itself. The story begins at the end of the Second World War, in a defeated country on the edge of collapse, in which orphaned and lost children are forced into homelessness, scavenging and stealing to stay alive, often laying the foundations of a so-called criminal career. While East Germany developed detention facilities for its secret police, West Germany passed prison reform laws, which erected, in the words of a prisoner, “little asbestos walls in Hell.” Shadowland is Germany as seen through the lives, experiences, triumphs, and tragedies of its lowest citizens.
[more]
Adam Smith
Jonathan Conlin
Reaktion Books, 2016
Universally acknowledged as the father of capitalism, the eighteenth-century Scottish thinker Adam Smith is best known for his “invisible hand” theory. This theory argued in favor of setting individuals free to pursue their self-interests for the good of all and has helped to make Smith's name synonymous with unfettered free market capitalism. In this book, Jonathan Conlin rescues Smith from the straight-jacket of economics, reattaching the “invisible hand” to Smith’s philosophy of ethics.
As Conlin shows, Smith rooted our instincts to trade in human psychology. Analyzing the contrasts he saw between the industrializing Scottish lowlands and the clan-based pastoralism of the Scottish highlands—as well as the contrasts between the ideas of contemporary thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume—Smith advanced a system of ethics founded on sympathy. Weaving together Smith’s life and ideas, Conlin shows how the latter anticipated much more recent developments surrounding behavioral economics, virtue ethics, and social inequality. Ultimately, Conlin argues, Adam Smith offers us a set of tools to face today's challenges and become better and happier human beings.
As Conlin shows, Smith rooted our instincts to trade in human psychology. Analyzing the contrasts he saw between the industrializing Scottish lowlands and the clan-based pastoralism of the Scottish highlands—as well as the contrasts between the ideas of contemporary thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume—Smith advanced a system of ethics founded on sympathy. Weaving together Smith’s life and ideas, Conlin shows how the latter anticipated much more recent developments surrounding behavioral economics, virtue ethics, and social inequality. Ultimately, Conlin argues, Adam Smith offers us a set of tools to face today's challenges and become better and happier human beings.
[more]
Great Economic Thinkers
An Introduction-from Adam Smith to Amartya Sen
Jonathan Conlin
Reaktion Books, 2019
Great Economic Thinkers presents an accessible introduction to the lives and works of thirteen of the most influential economists of modern times: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Alfred Marshall, Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, and Nobel Prize winners Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, John Forbes Nash, Jr., Daniel Kahneman, Amartya Sen, and Joseph Stiglitz. Free from confusing jargon and equations, the book describes key concepts put forward by these thinkers and shows how they have come to shape how we see ourselves and our society. Readers will consider the role played by the division of labor, wages and rents, cognitive biases, saving, entrepreneurship, game theory, liberalism, laissez-faire, and welfare economics.
All of the economists featured have had a profound influence on our attitudes towards market intervention and regulation, taxation, trade, and monetary policy. Each of the chapters—all written by an acknowledged expert—combines a biographical outline of a single thinker with critical analysis of their contribution to economic thought. If you’ve ever wanted to find out more about the theorists who gave us the invisible hand, Marxism, Keynesianism, creative destruction, behavioral economics, and many other foundational concepts of economics, this collection of essays is the perfect place to start.
All of the economists featured have had a profound influence on our attitudes towards market intervention and regulation, taxation, trade, and monetary policy. Each of the chapters—all written by an acknowledged expert—combines a biographical outline of a single thinker with critical analysis of their contribution to economic thought. If you’ve ever wanted to find out more about the theorists who gave us the invisible hand, Marxism, Keynesianism, creative destruction, behavioral economics, and many other foundational concepts of economics, this collection of essays is the perfect place to start.
[more]
Finland
Modern Architectures in History
Roger Connah
Reaktion Books, 2005
Buildings speak volumes, not just about their occupants or owners, but about the countries in which they exist. From colonnades to paving stones, the architecture of any building does more than simply date the structure—it celebrates the spirit of a people and a nation.
Roger Connah's latest book, Finland, explores the culture and democratic spirit of a country whose buildings carry the indelible markings of Finland's political and physical climate. Nearly all of the country's buildings were constructed after 1917, when Finland gained its independence from Russia. The resulting architecture—often springing from hugely popular public competitions—is emphatically democratic in structure and usage. Finland's extreme northern latitudes, for their part, have given rise to buildings with an acute sensitivity to the physical environment and to the delicate interplay of light and shadow.
From museums to schools to subsidized housing developments, Connah's Finland is an important survey of the country's architecture. Fully illustrated and with detailed examinations of many of the Finnish master architects—including Alvar Aalto—it is also a valuable contribution to the studies of modern architecture and Nordic history.
Roger Connah's latest book, Finland, explores the culture and democratic spirit of a country whose buildings carry the indelible markings of Finland's political and physical climate. Nearly all of the country's buildings were constructed after 1917, when Finland gained its independence from Russia. The resulting architecture—often springing from hugely popular public competitions—is emphatically democratic in structure and usage. Finland's extreme northern latitudes, for their part, have given rise to buildings with an acute sensitivity to the physical environment and to the delicate interplay of light and shadow.
From museums to schools to subsidized housing developments, Connah's Finland is an important survey of the country's architecture. Fully illustrated and with detailed examinations of many of the Finnish master architects—including Alvar Aalto—it is also a valuable contribution to the studies of modern architecture and Nordic history.
[more]
Beyond Words
Sobs, Hums, Stutters and Other Vocalizations
Steven Connor
Reaktion Books, 2014
In Beyond Words, Steven Connor seeks to understand spoken human language outside words, a realm that encompasses the sounds we make that bring depth, meaning, and confusion to communication. Plunging into the connotations and uses associated with particular groups of vocal utterances—the guttural, the dental, the fricative, and the sibilant—he reveals the beliefs, the myths, and the responses that surround the growls, stutters, ums, ers, and ahs of everyday language.
Beyond Words goes outside of linguistics and phonetics to focus on the popular conceptions of what language is, rather than what it actually is or how it works. From the moans and sobs of human grief to playful linguistic nonsense, Connor probes the fringes and limits of human language—and our definition of “voice” and meaning—to challenge our basic assumptions about what it is to communicate and where we find meaning in language. By engaging with vocal sounds and tics usually trivialized or ignored, Beyond Words presents a startling and fascinating new way to engage with language itself.
Beyond Words goes outside of linguistics and phonetics to focus on the popular conceptions of what language is, rather than what it actually is or how it works. From the moans and sobs of human grief to playful linguistic nonsense, Connor probes the fringes and limits of human language—and our definition of “voice” and meaning—to challenge our basic assumptions about what it is to communicate and where we find meaning in language. By engaging with vocal sounds and tics usually trivialized or ignored, Beyond Words presents a startling and fascinating new way to engage with language itself.
[more]
The Book of Skin
Steven Connor
Reaktion Books, 2003
It is the largest and perhaps the most important organ of our body—it covers our fragile inner parts, defines our social identities, and channels our sensory experiences. And yet we rarely give a thought. With The Book of Skin, Steven Connor aims to change all that, offering an intriguing cultural history of skin.
Connor first examines physical issues such as leprosy, skin pigmentation, cancer, blushing, and attenuations of erotic touch. He also explains why specific colors symbolize certain emotions, such as green for envy or yellow for cowardice, as well as why skin is the focus of destructive rage in many people’s violent fantasies.
The Book of Skin then probes into how skin has been such a powerfully symbolic terrain in photography, religious iconography, cinema, and literature. From the Turin shroud to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man to plastic surgery, The Book of Skin expertly examines the role of skin in Western culture. A compelling read that penetrates well beyond skin-deep, The Book of Skin validates James Joyce’s declaration that “modern man has an epidermis rather than a soul.”
“Richly conceived and elaborately thought out. No flicker of meaning has escaped Connor’s ferocious, all-seeing eye.”—Guardian
[more]
Dreamwork
Why All Work Is Imaginary
Steven Connor
Reaktion Books, 2023
Upending our perception of employment, a surprising investigation into the mystical nature of our daily toil.
Dreamwork is a book about the ideas, dreams, dreads, and ideals we have about work. Its central argument is this: Although we depend on the idea of work for our identity as humans, we feel we must disguise from ourselves the fact that we do not know what work is. There is no example of work that nobody might, under some circumstances, do for fun. All work is imaginary—which is not to say that it is simply illusory, but rather that, to count as work, it must be imagined to be work. In other words, a large part of what we mean by working is this work of imagining. Work is therefore essentially mystical—just the opposite of what it is taken to be by all of us spending our days at desks, behind cash registers, and in factories. Delving into this complex mythos, Dreamwork looks in turn at worries about whether or not work is hard; the importance of places of work; the meanings of hobbies, holidays, and sabbaths; and the history of dreams of redeeming work.
Dreamwork is a book about the ideas, dreams, dreads, and ideals we have about work. Its central argument is this: Although we depend on the idea of work for our identity as humans, we feel we must disguise from ourselves the fact that we do not know what work is. There is no example of work that nobody might, under some circumstances, do for fun. All work is imaginary—which is not to say that it is simply illusory, but rather that, to count as work, it must be imagined to be work. In other words, a large part of what we mean by working is this work of imagining. Work is therefore essentially mystical—just the opposite of what it is taken to be by all of us spending our days at desks, behind cash registers, and in factories. Delving into this complex mythos, Dreamwork looks in turn at worries about whether or not work is hard; the importance of places of work; the meanings of hobbies, holidays, and sabbaths; and the history of dreams of redeeming work.
[more]
Fly
Steven Connor
Reaktion Books, 2006
Few creatures are as universally despised as flies. Blamed for pestilence and plagues, they were publicly excommunicated from the medieval church. Beelzebub, “the lord of the flies,” was said to be the embodiment of evil, and, for centuries, flies were considered the result of spontaneous generation—the unnatural consequence of rotting meat.
Fly explores the history of this much-maligned creature and then turns to examine its newfound redemption through science. The secrets of the fly’s versatile powers of flight, Steven Connor reveals, are only beginning to be understood and appreciated. Its eyes and wings, for instance, have evolved so perfectly that they provide inspiration for some of today’s most daring technological and scientific innovations. And the humble fruit fly, Connor demonstrates, stands at the center of revolutionary advances in genetic research.
Connor delights in tracking his lowly subject through myth, literature, poetry, painting, film, and biology. Humans live in close and intimate quarters with flies, but Fly is the first book to give these common creatures their due.
Fly explores the history of this much-maligned creature and then turns to examine its newfound redemption through science. The secrets of the fly’s versatile powers of flight, Steven Connor reveals, are only beginning to be understood and appreciated. Its eyes and wings, for instance, have evolved so perfectly that they provide inspiration for some of today’s most daring technological and scientific innovations. And the humble fruit fly, Connor demonstrates, stands at the center of revolutionary advances in genetic research.
Connor delights in tracking his lowly subject through myth, literature, poetry, painting, film, and biology. Humans live in close and intimate quarters with flies, but Fly is the first book to give these common creatures their due.
[more]
Living by Numbers
In Defence of Quantity
Steven Connor
Reaktion Books, 2016
How do we really think about the world? We may use words to tell stories about it or draw pictures to represent it, but one thing we do far more than either of those is make calculations of the things that are in it—and to do that we use numbers. Numbers give shape and texture to almost everything we feel, say, dream, and do, a fact that Steven Connor explores in this qualitative assessment of the quantifiable. Looking at how numbers play a part in nearly every aspect of our lives, he offers a fascinating portrait of the world as a world of numbers.
Connor explores a host of thought-provoking aspects of our numerical existence. He looks at the unexpected oddities that shape the loneliest number—the number one. He looks at counting as a human phenomenon and the ways we negotiate crowds, swarms, and multitudes. He demonstrates the work of calculation as it lies at the heart of poetry, jokes, painting, and music. He shows how we use numbers to adjust to uncertainty and chance and how they help us visualize the world in diagrammatic ways, and he unveils how numbers even help us think about death. Altogether, Connor brings into relief an aspect of our lives so ubiquitous that we often can’t see it, unveiling a rich new way of thinking about our existence.
Connor explores a host of thought-provoking aspects of our numerical existence. He looks at the unexpected oddities that shape the loneliest number—the number one. He looks at counting as a human phenomenon and the ways we negotiate crowds, swarms, and multitudes. He demonstrates the work of calculation as it lies at the heart of poetry, jokes, painting, and music. He shows how we use numbers to adjust to uncertainty and chance and how they help us visualize the world in diagrammatic ways, and he unveils how numbers even help us think about death. Altogether, Connor brings into relief an aspect of our lives so ubiquitous that we often can’t see it, unveiling a rich new way of thinking about our existence.
[more]
The Madness of Knowledge
On Wisdom, Ignorance and Fantasies of Knowing
Steven Connor
Reaktion Books, 2019
Many human beings have considered the powers and the limits of human knowledge, but few have wondered about the power that the idea of knowledge has over us. Steven Connor’s The Madness of Knowledge is the first book to investigate this emotional inner life of knowledge—the lusts, fantasies, dreams, and fears that the idea of knowing provokes. There are in-depth discussions of the imperious will to know, of Freud’s epistemophilia (or love of knowledge), and the curiously insistent links between madness, magical thinking, and the desire for knowledge. Connor also probes secrets and revelations, quarreling and the history of quizzes and “general knowledge,” charlatanry and pretension, both the violent disdain and the sanctification of the stupid, as well as the emotional investment in the spaces and places of knowledge, from the study to the library.
In an age of artificial intelligence, alternative facts, and mistrust of truth, The Madness of Knowledge offers an opulent, enlarging, and sometimes unnerving psychopathology of intellectual life.
In an age of artificial intelligence, alternative facts, and mistrust of truth, The Madness of Knowledge offers an opulent, enlarging, and sometimes unnerving psychopathology of intellectual life.
[more]
The Matter of Air
Science and Art of the Ethereal
Steven Connor
Reaktion Books, 2010
Take a deep breath. Air—without it, life on Earth would cease to exist. Though not usually seen, its presence is relied upon. At once both ethereal and physical, air has been associated with flight and spirit, and yet it has progressively become a territory that can be claimed through communications, warfare, travel, and scientific exploration. At the same time, air is no longer a completely reliable part of our daily life: like water, it has become an environmental element that must be watched closely for quality and purity.
A Matter of Air investigates the meanings of air over the last three centuries, including our modern concern over emissions and climate change. Steven Connor looks at the human relationship with air, both positive and negative. His explorations include the dangers posed by radio atmospherics, poison gas, and haze as well as our continued fascination with effervescence and explosives. Drawing ideas from religion, science, art, literature, and philosophy, A Matter of Air creates a comprehensive history of the human perception of air. Thoroughly researched and written with wit and quirky enthusiasm, the book will appeal to a wide range of general readers interested in the environment, human history, and our most essential aspects of life.
[more]
A Philosophy of Sport
Steven Connor
Reaktion Books, 2011
While previous writing on the philosophy of sport has tended to see sport as a kind of testing ground for philosophical theories devised to deal with other kinds of problems—of ethics, aesthetics, or logical categorization—here Steven Connor offers a new philosophical understanding of sport in its own terms. In order to define what sport essentially is and means, Connor presents a complete grammar of sport, isolating and describing its essential elements, including the characteristic spaces of sport, the nature of sporting time, the importance of sporting objects like bats and balls, the methods of movement in sport, the role of rules and chance, and what it really means to cheat and to win.
Defined as games that involve bodily exertion and exhaustion, sports simultaneously require constraint and the ability to overcome it. Sport, argues Connor, is a fundamental feature of modern humans. It is shown to be one of the most powerful ways in which we negotiate the relationship between the human and natural worlds. Encompassing a huge range of different sports, and enlisting the help of Hegel, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Adorno, Sartre, Ayer, Deleuze, and Serres, A Philosophy of Sport will inform, surprise, and delight thoughtful athletes and sporty philosophers alike.
[more]
Donatello and the Dawn of Renaissance Art
A. Victor Coonin
Reaktion Books, 2019
The Italian sculptor known as Donatello helped to forge a new kind of art—one that came to define the Renaissance. His work was progressive, challenging, and even controversial. Using a variety of novel sculptural techniques and innovative interpretations, Donatello uniquely depicted themes involving human sexuality, violence, spirituality, and beauty. But to really understand Donatello, one needs to understand his changing world, marked by the transition from Medieval to Renaissance style and to an art that was more personal and representative of the modern self. Donatello was not just a man of his times, he helped shape the spirit of the times he lived in and profoundly influenced those that came after.
In this beautifully illustrated book—the first thorough biography of Donatello in twenty-five years—A. Victor Coonin describes the full extent of Donatello’s revolutionary contributions, revealing how his work heralded the emergence of modern art.
In this beautifully illustrated book—the first thorough biography of Donatello in twenty-five years—A. Victor Coonin describes the full extent of Donatello’s revolutionary contributions, revealing how his work heralded the emergence of modern art.
[more]
Christine de Pizan
Life, Work, Legacy
Charlotte Cooper-Davis
Reaktion Books, 2021
The first popular biography of a pioneering feminist thinker and writer of medieval Paris.
The daughter of a court intellectual, Christine de Pizan dwelled within the cultural heart of late-medieval Paris. In the face of personal tragedy, she learned the tools of the book trade, writing more than forty works that included poetry, historical and political treatises, and defenses of women. In this new biography—the first written for a general audience—Charlotte Cooper-Davis discusses the life and work of this pioneering female thinker and writer. She shows how Christine de Pizan’s inspiration came from the world around her, situates her as an entrepreneur within the context of her times and place, and finally examines her influence on the most avant-garde of feminist artists, through whom she is slowly making a return into mainstream popular culture.
The daughter of a court intellectual, Christine de Pizan dwelled within the cultural heart of late-medieval Paris. In the face of personal tragedy, she learned the tools of the book trade, writing more than forty works that included poetry, historical and political treatises, and defenses of women. In this new biography—the first written for a general audience—Charlotte Cooper-Davis discusses the life and work of this pioneering female thinker and writer. She shows how Christine de Pizan’s inspiration came from the world around her, situates her as an entrepreneur within the context of her times and place, and finally examines her influence on the most avant-garde of feminist artists, through whom she is slowly making a return into mainstream popular culture.
[more]
Storyworlds of Robin Hood
The Origins of a Medieval Outlaw
Lesley Coote
Reaktion Books, 2020
Robin Hood is one of the most enduring and well-known figures of English folklore. Yet who was he really? In this intriguing book, Lesley Coote reexamines the early tales about Robin in light of the stories, both English and French, that have grown up around them—stories with which they shared many elements of form and meaning. In the process, she returns to questions such as where did Robin come from, and what did these stories mean? The Robin who reveals himself is as spiritual as he is secular, and as much an insider as he is an outlaw. And in the context of current debates about national identity and Britain’s relationship with the wider world, Robin emerges to be as European as he is English—or perhaps, as Coote suggests, that is precisely the quality which made him fundamentally English all along.
[more]
Cockroach
Marion Copeland
Reaktion Books, 2004
The cockroach could not have scuttled along, almost unchanged, for two hundred and fifty million years – some two hundred and forty-nine before man evolved – unless it was doing something right. It would be fascinating as well as instructive to have access to the cockroach’s own record of its life on earth, to know its point of view on evolution and species domination over the millennia. Such chronicles would perhaps radically alter our perceptions of the dinosaur’s span and importance – and that of our own development and significance. We might learn that throughout all these aeons, the dominant life form has been, if not the cockroach itself, then certainly the insect.
Attempts to chronicle the cockroach’s intellectual and emotional life have been made only within the last century when a scientist titled his essay on the cockroach "The Intellectual and Emotional World of the Cockroach", and artists as radically different as Franz Kafka and Don Marquis created equally memorable cockroach protagonists.
At least since Classical Greece, authors have brought cockroach characters into the foreground to speak for the weak and downtrodden, the outsiders, those forced to survive on the underside of dominant human cultures. Cockroaches have become the subjects of songs (La Cucaracha), have competed in "roachraces" and have even ended up in recipes. In this accessible, sympathetic and often humorous book, Marion Copeland examines the natural history, symbolism and cultural significance of this poorly understood and much-maligned insect.
Attempts to chronicle the cockroach’s intellectual and emotional life have been made only within the last century when a scientist titled his essay on the cockroach "The Intellectual and Emotional World of the Cockroach", and artists as radically different as Franz Kafka and Don Marquis created equally memorable cockroach protagonists.
At least since Classical Greece, authors have brought cockroach characters into the foreground to speak for the weak and downtrodden, the outsiders, those forced to survive on the underside of dominant human cultures. Cockroaches have become the subjects of songs (La Cucaracha), have competed in "roachraces" and have even ended up in recipes. In this accessible, sympathetic and often humorous book, Marion Copeland examines the natural history, symbolism and cultural significance of this poorly understood and much-maligned insect.
[more]
The Papacy in the Modern World
A Political History
Frank J. Coppa
Reaktion Books, 2014
In March 2013, millions of people sat glued to news channels and live Internet feeds, waiting to see white smoke rise from the Sistine Chapel, signaling the election of the new pope. For two millennia, the papacy, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has played a fundamentally important role in European history and world affairs. Transcending the religious realm, it has influenced ideological, philosophical, social, and political developments, as well as international relations. Considering the broad role of the papacy from the end of the eighteenth century to the present, this original history explores the reactions and responses it has evoked and its confrontation with and accommodation of the modern world.
Frank J. Coppa describes the triumphs, controversies, and failures of the popes over the past two hundred years—including Pius IX, who was criticized for his campaign against Italian unification and his proclamation of papal infallibility; Pius XII, denounced for his silence during the Holocaust and impartiality during World War II; and John XXIII, who was praised for his call to update the Church and for convoking the Second Vatican Council. Examining a wide variety of sources, some only recently made available by the Vatican archives, The Papacy in the Modern World sheds new light on this institution and offers valuable insights into events previously shrouded in mystery.
Frank J. Coppa describes the triumphs, controversies, and failures of the popes over the past two hundred years—including Pius IX, who was criticized for his campaign against Italian unification and his proclamation of papal infallibility; Pius XII, denounced for his silence during the Holocaust and impartiality during World War II; and John XXIII, who was praised for his call to update the Church and for convoking the Second Vatican Council. Examining a wide variety of sources, some only recently made available by the Vatican archives, The Papacy in the Modern World sheds new light on this institution and offers valuable insights into events previously shrouded in mystery.
[more]
Painting the Soul
Icons, Death Masks and Shrouds
Robin Cormack
Reaktion Books, 1997
Painting the Soul is a beautifully illustrated study of the creation and development of the icon.
"This book is a firework display. It sets off scores of explosions which light up the sky over-arching our field, terrain that is normally traversed nose down and too mindful of the footsteps of our predecessors."—Burlington Magazine
"This book is a firework display. It sets off scores of explosions which light up the sky over-arching our field, terrain that is normally traversed nose down and too mindful of the footsteps of our predecessors."—Burlington Magazine
[more]
Ad Reinhardt
Michael Corris
Reaktion Books, 2008
Diego Rivera, Dorothea Lange, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel: Art and activism have long been intertwined, and the political fallout has resulted in an artistic canon riddled with historical holes. One of the most glaring omissions from most listings of American art masters is Ad Reinhardt (1913–67). An artist who had significant ties to the American Communist movement and leftist political organizations, Reinhardt and his contributions to modern art have been largely pushed out of the spotlight for political reasons. But in this unprecedented in-depth study of Reinhardt’s life and work, Michael Corris returns the artist to his rightful place in the history of modern art and culture.
A pioneering avant-garde artist with fierce political beliefs, Reinhardt immersed himself in the vibrant left-wing political and cultural circles of the 1930s and ’40s, only to be marginalized by the social and cultural conservatism that arose in postwar America. Corris examines Reinhardt’s work against this historical background, charting the development of his entire oeuvre, ranging from his abstract paintings to his popular graphic artwork, illustrations and cartoons. Ad Reinhardt also re-evaluates Reinhardt’s role and influence in the art world, chronicling his time as an artist and educator at the California School of Fine Arts, University of Wyoming, Yale University, and Hunter College, and examining his influence on younger artists who created successive avant-garde movements such as minimal and conceptual art.
A long-awaited examination of a less-heralded American master, Ad Reinhardt is a fascinating portrait of an artist whose political radicalism infused his art with a poignant resonance that stretches, through this rediscovery, into the present.
[more]
Art, Word and Image
2,000 Years of Visual/Textual Interaction
Michael Corris
Reaktion Books, 2010
What does it mean to say that a painting has been “invaded” by language? Art, Word and Image answers this question by exploring how visual images and writing can work in dialogue in an artwork. Whether the picture frame is encroached upon by doodlings, as with Adolf Wolfli’s seemingly irrational scribbles, or a plea to spirituality is blazoned across a vast canvas, as in the moving images of Colin McCahon, we can be sure that words here have a special meaning, one beyond everyday communication.
Art, Word and Image, one of the first books to examine the use of language in art, is constructed around three major chronological essays by renowned scholars John Dixon Hunt, David Lomas, and Michael Corris. Their essays chart the use and significance of words in art—from Classical Greece through the Middle Ages and Renaissance to modern digital media.
[more]
Mappings
Denis Cosgrove
Reaktion Books, 1999
Mappings explores what mapping has meant in the past and how its meanings have altered. How have maps and mapping served to order and represent physical, social and imaginative worlds? How has the practice of mapping shaped modern seeing and knowing? In what ways do contemporary changes in our experience of the world alter the meanings and practice of mapping, and vice versa?
In their diverse expressions, maps and the representational processes of mapping have constructed the spaces of modernity since the early Renaissance. The map's spatial fixity, its capacity to frame, control and communicate knowledge through combining image and text, and cartography's increasing claims to scientific authority, make mapping at once an instrument and a metaphor for rational understanding of the world.
Among the topics the authors investigate are projective and imaginative mappings; mappings of terraqueous spaces; mapping and localism at the 'chorographic' scale; and mapping as personal exploration.
With essays by Jerry Brotton, Paul Carter, Michael Charlesworth, James Corner, Wystan Curnow, Christian Jacob, Luciana de Lima Martins, David Matless, Armand Mattelart, Lucia Nuti and Alessandro Scafi
In their diverse expressions, maps and the representational processes of mapping have constructed the spaces of modernity since the early Renaissance. The map's spatial fixity, its capacity to frame, control and communicate knowledge through combining image and text, and cartography's increasing claims to scientific authority, make mapping at once an instrument and a metaphor for rational understanding of the world.
Among the topics the authors investigate are projective and imaginative mappings; mappings of terraqueous spaces; mapping and localism at the 'chorographic' scale; and mapping as personal exploration.
With essays by Jerry Brotton, Paul Carter, Michael Charlesworth, James Corner, Wystan Curnow, Christian Jacob, Luciana de Lima Martins, David Matless, Armand Mattelart, Lucia Nuti and Alessandro Scafi
[more]
Photography and Flight
Denis Cosgrove
Reaktion Books, 2010
Used for everything from geographic evaluation to secret spy missions, aerial photography has a rich and storied history, ably recounted here in Photography and Flight.
Aerial photography is marked by its dependency on technological developments in both photography and aerospace, and the authors chart the history of this photography as it tracked the evolution of these technologies. Beginning with early images taken from hot-air balloons, fixed platforms, and subsequent handheld camera technology, Denis Cosgrove and William Fox then explain how military reconnaissance and governmental projects were instrumental in catalyzing these and other innovations in the field. They examine pivotal historical moments in which aerial photography began to establish itself as essential tool, such as in World War II military strategies, high-altitude photography taken from postwar rockets and aircraft, and the use of aerial photography during the cold war and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The book also explores the advancement of geographic scholarship through aerial photography, ranging from military excursions into Antarctica to the images of the curvature of the earth taken during the Apollo space missions.
While digital technology and remote sensing have changed the landscape of photography, Photography and Flight argues that they have not diminished the significance of aerial photography in providing images of the earth. Rather, new technologies and resulting innovations such as Google Earth have enabled the mass democratization of access to such information. Photography and Flight ultimately reveals how the camera lens from far away continues to unearth telling details about the land and those who live upon it.
[more]
John Ashbery
Jess Cotton
Reaktion Books, 2023
A critical biography of America’s most influential postmodern poet.
Mysterious, esoteric, and baffling, John Ashbery is notorious for the seeming difficulty of his work. But Ashbery is also entertaining, humorous, even charming, and ever responsive to his shifting social and political contexts. This biography charts Ashbery’s rise from a minor avant-garde figure to the most important poet of his generation. Jess Cotton provides a legible and accessible roadmap to Ashbery’s work that draws connections between his poetry, New York artists, and mid-century politics. Cotton paints an image of a more approachable and socially engaged Ashbery that will appeal to anyone interested in American poetry, queer lives, and twentieth-century American history.
Mysterious, esoteric, and baffling, John Ashbery is notorious for the seeming difficulty of his work. But Ashbery is also entertaining, humorous, even charming, and ever responsive to his shifting social and political contexts. This biography charts Ashbery’s rise from a minor avant-garde figure to the most important poet of his generation. Jess Cotton provides a legible and accessible roadmap to Ashbery’s work that draws connections between his poetry, New York artists, and mid-century politics. Cotton paints an image of a more approachable and socially engaged Ashbery that will appeal to anyone interested in American poetry, queer lives, and twentieth-century American history.
[more]
Llama
Helen Cowie
Reaktion Books, 2017
Known for their woolly charm, sure-footed strength, and a propensity to spit at you if you bother them too much, llamas have had a rich and diverse history. Since their domestication high in the Andes, they have been farmed, smuggled, sacrificed, and sometimes kept around just to be petted. They have functioned at different times as luxury commodities, literary muses, and national symbols, and they have served by turns as beasts of burden, circus performers, and even golf caddies. In this book, Helen Cowie charts the fascinating history of llamas and their close relatives, alpacas, guanacos, and vicuñas.
Cowie illustrates how deeply the Incas venerated llamas and shows how the animals are still cherished in their native lands in Peru and Bolivia, remaining central to Andean culture. She also tells the story of attempts to introduce llamas and alpacas to Britain, the United States, and Australia, where they are used today for trekking, wool production, and even as therapy animals.
Packed with llama drama and alpaca facts, this book will delight animal lovers, fans of natural history, and anyone who just can’t resist these inimitable animals’ off-the-charts cuteness factor.
Cowie illustrates how deeply the Incas venerated llamas and shows how the animals are still cherished in their native lands in Peru and Bolivia, remaining central to Andean culture. She also tells the story of attempts to introduce llamas and alpacas to Britain, the United States, and Australia, where they are used today for trekking, wool production, and even as therapy animals.
Packed with llama drama and alpaca facts, this book will delight animal lovers, fans of natural history, and anyone who just can’t resist these inimitable animals’ off-the-charts cuteness factor.
[more]
Hollywood Goes to Washington
American Politics on Screen
Michael Coyne
Reaktion Books, 2008
Fantasy and politics are familiar dancing partners that rarely separate, even in the face of post–Election Day realities. But Hollywood has a tradition of punching holes in the fairy tales of electoral promises with films that meditate on what could have been and should have been. With Hollywood Goes to Washington,Michael Coyne investigates how the American political film unravels the labyrinthine entanglements of politics and the psyche of the American electorate in order to reveal brutal truths about the state of our democracy.
From conspiracy dramas such as The Manchurian Candidate to satires like Wag the Dog, Hollywood Goes to Washington argues that political films in American cinema have long reflected the issues and tensions roiling within American society. Coyne elucidates the mythology, iconography, and ideology embedded in both classic and lesser-known films—including Gabriel Over the White House, Silver City, Advise and Consent, and The Siege—and examines the cinematic portrayals of presidents in the White House, the everyman American citizen, and the nebulous enemies who threaten American democracy. The author provocatively contends that whether addressing the threat of domestic fascism in Citizen Kane or the disillusionment of Vietnam and paranoia of the post-Watergate era in Executive Action, the American political film stands as an important cultural bellwether and democratic force—one that is more vital than ever in the face of decreasing civil liberties in the present-day United States.
Compelling and wholly original, Hollywood Goes to Washington exposes the political power of the silver screen and its ramifications for contemporary American culture.
[more]
Coal
Nature and Culture
Ralph Crane
Reaktion Books, 2021
While concerns about climate change have focused negative attention on the coal industry in recent years, as descendants of the industrial revolution we have all benefitted from the mining of the black seam. Coal has significantly influenced the course of human history and our social and natural environments. This book takes readers on a journey through the extraordinary artistic responses to coal, from its role in the works of writers such as Émile Zola, D. H. Lawrence, and George Orwell; to the way it inspired the work of painters, including J. M. W. Turner, Claude Monet, and Vincent van Gogh; to the place of coal in film, song, and folklore; as well as the surprising allure of coal tourism. Strikingly illustrated, Coal provides engaging and informative insight into the myriad ways coal has affected our lives.
[more]
Cave
Nature and Culture
Ralph Crane
Reaktion Books, 2015
Shortlisted for the Tratman Award 2015
To enter caves is to venture beyond the realm of the everyday. From huge vaulted caverns to impassable, water-filled passages; from the karst topography of Guilin in China to the lava tubes of Hawaii; from tiny remote pilgrimage sites to massive tourism enterprises, caves are places of mystery. Dark spaces that remain largely unexplored, caves are astonishing wonders of nature and habitats for exotic flora and fauna.
This book investigates the natural and cultural history of caves and considers the roles caves have played in the human imagination and experience of the natural world. It explores the long history of the human fascination with caves, across countries and continents, examining their dual role as spaces of both wonder and fear. It tells the tales of the adventurers who pioneered the science of caves and those of the explorers and cave-divers still searching for new, unmapped routes deep into the earth. This book explores the lure of the subterranean world by examining caving and cave tourism and by looking to the mythology, literature, and art of caves. This lavishly illustrated book will appeal to general readers and experts alike interested in the ecology and use of caves, or the extraordinary artistic responses earth’s dark recesses have evoked over the centuries.
To enter caves is to venture beyond the realm of the everyday. From huge vaulted caverns to impassable, water-filled passages; from the karst topography of Guilin in China to the lava tubes of Hawaii; from tiny remote pilgrimage sites to massive tourism enterprises, caves are places of mystery. Dark spaces that remain largely unexplored, caves are astonishing wonders of nature and habitats for exotic flora and fauna.
This book investigates the natural and cultural history of caves and considers the roles caves have played in the human imagination and experience of the natural world. It explores the long history of the human fascination with caves, across countries and continents, examining their dual role as spaces of both wonder and fear. It tells the tales of the adventurers who pioneered the science of caves and those of the explorers and cave-divers still searching for new, unmapped routes deep into the earth. This book explores the lure of the subterranean world by examining caving and cave tourism and by looking to the mythology, literature, and art of caves. This lavishly illustrated book will appeal to general readers and experts alike interested in the ecology and use of caves, or the extraordinary artistic responses earth’s dark recesses have evoked over the centuries.
[more]
Shark
Dean Crawford
Reaktion Books, 2008
A sleek hunter of the seas, the shark has struck fear into the hearts of men since the days of the first fishermen. Dean Crawford now explores here the long relationship between shark and man, revealing that behind the fearsome caricature is a complex animal that deserves a thoughtful reconsideration.
With a lineage stretching back over 100 million years, the shark has evolved into 350 different species, from the great white to the pike-bearing goblin to the tiny cookie-cutter. Crawford compiles here a fascinating narrative that analyzes how and why the animal looms large in our cultural psyche. While sharks have played a prominent part in religion and mythology, they are more commonly perceived as deadly predators—in such films as Jaws and Dr. No—or as symbols of natural violence, as in Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream. Shark ultimately argues, however, that our ill-informed emotional responses, spurred by such representations, have encouraged the wholesale slaughter of sharks—and our ignorance endangers the very existence of the shark today.
Both a celebration of their lethal beauty and plea for their conservation, Shark urges us to shed our fears and appreciate the magnificence of this majestic animal.
[more]
The Tramp in America
Tim Cresswell
Reaktion Books, 2001
This book provides the first account of the invention of the tramp as a social type in the United States between the 1870s and the 1930s. Tim Cresswell considers the ways in which the tramp was imagined and described and how, by World War II, it was being reclassified and rendered invisible. He describes the "tramp scare" of the late nineteenth century and explores the assumption that tramps were invariably male and therefore a threat to women. Cresswell also examines tramps as comic figures and looks at the work of prominent American photographers which signaled a sympathetic portrayal of this often-despised group. Perhaps most significantly, The Tramp in America calls into question the common assumption that mobility played a central role in the production of American identity.
“This is an effective, and sometimes touching, account of how a social phenomenon was created, classified and reclassified. The quality of the writing, the excellent illustrations and the high production standards give this reasonably-priced hardback a chance of appealing to a general audience . . . an important contribution to American studies, providing new perspectives on the significance of mobility and rootlessness at an important time in the development of the nation. Cresswell successfully illuminates the history of a disadvantaged and marginal group, while providing a lens by which to focus on the thinking and practices of the mainstream culture with which they dealt. As such, this book represents a considerable achievement.”—Cultural Geographies
“An important book. Cresswell has made an important contribution to a homelessness literature still lacking a more sophisticated theoretical edge. Clearly written, beautifully illustrated and with a strong argument throughout, the book deserves to be widely read by students and practitioners alike.”—Progress in Human Geography
“This is an effective, and sometimes touching, account of how a social phenomenon was created, classified and reclassified. The quality of the writing, the excellent illustrations and the high production standards give this reasonably-priced hardback a chance of appealing to a general audience . . . an important contribution to American studies, providing new perspectives on the significance of mobility and rootlessness at an important time in the development of the nation. Cresswell successfully illuminates the history of a disadvantaged and marginal group, while providing a lens by which to focus on the thinking and practices of the mainstream culture with which they dealt. As such, this book represents a considerable achievement.”—Cultural Geographies
“An important book. Cresswell has made an important contribution to a homelessness literature still lacking a more sophisticated theoretical edge. Clearly written, beautifully illustrated and with a strong argument throughout, the book deserves to be widely read by students and practitioners alike.”—Progress in Human Geography
[more]
Seeing into the Future
A Short History of Prediction
Martin van Creveld
Reaktion Books, 2020
The ability to predict the future is essential to modern life. Planning for population growth or changes in weather patterns or forecasting demand for products and managing inventories would be impossible without it. But how have people through the ages gone about making predictions? What were their underlying assumptions, and what methods did they use? Have increased computer power and the newest algorithms improved our success in anticipating the future, or are we still only as good (or as bad) as our ancestors bent over their auguries? From the ancients watching the flight of birds to the murky activities of Google and Facebook today, Seeing into the Future provides vital insight into the past, present, and—of course—future of prediction.
[more]
Strike Up the Band
New York City in the Roaring Twenties
Helen Crisp
Reaktion Books
A spirited chronicle of New York’s economic and cultural boom during the outstanding decade of the Roaring Twenties.
This is the story of the zest for life that gripped New York in the postwar years of the 1920s. The decade ushered in an era of almost unprecedented prosperity and economic expansion that made New York the powerhouse of America and fueled a wave of creativity in music, fashion, literature, and architecture. Strike Up the Band explores how the city became a magnet for a host of outstanding personalities, from literary figures to sports stars, musicians, composers, and journalists, and pays a visit to the places they frequented, such as the Cotton Club and Broadway theaters. From the skyline to the sidewalk, the city itself also transformed as it was redeveloped in the 1920s building boom, with Art Deco becoming the style that dominated the new era.
This is the story of the zest for life that gripped New York in the postwar years of the 1920s. The decade ushered in an era of almost unprecedented prosperity and economic expansion that made New York the powerhouse of America and fueled a wave of creativity in music, fashion, literature, and architecture. Strike Up the Band explores how the city became a magnet for a host of outstanding personalities, from literary figures to sports stars, musicians, composers, and journalists, and pays a visit to the places they frequented, such as the Cotton Club and Broadway theaters. From the skyline to the sidewalk, the city itself also transformed as it was redeveloped in the 1920s building boom, with Art Deco becoming the style that dominated the new era.
[more]
Marcel Duchamp
Caroline Cros
Reaktion Books, 2006
A revealing account of an artist whose enduring obsession with chance and coincidence shaped both his life and work, Marcel Duchamp illuminates one of the most important and influential figures in all of modern art.
Drawing on the artist’s own correspondence as well as interviews, Paris-based curator and art critic Caroline Cros explores the creative processes behind Duchamp’s works—including his famous anti-sculptures, the "Readymades"; the enigmatic Grand Verre; and the seductive, disturbing Etant Donnés—as well as the often hostile reception he encountered in Paris and around the world.
Cros also examines Duchamp’s work after he abandoned his art at the age of thirty-six. Notoriously, Duchamp claimed that he would dedicate the remainder of his life to chess, but here we learn of his ongoing contributions to the art world, including his intense involvement in museums, foundations, and surrealist publications.
With two major Dada exhibitions planned for 2006, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, MarcelDuchamp will be this year’s ultimate guide to the master of the movment.
Drawing on the artist’s own correspondence as well as interviews, Paris-based curator and art critic Caroline Cros explores the creative processes behind Duchamp’s works—including his famous anti-sculptures, the "Readymades"; the enigmatic Grand Verre; and the seductive, disturbing Etant Donnés—as well as the often hostile reception he encountered in Paris and around the world.
Cros also examines Duchamp’s work after he abandoned his art at the age of thirty-six. Notoriously, Duchamp claimed that he would dedicate the remainder of his life to chess, but here we learn of his ongoing contributions to the art world, including his intense involvement in museums, foundations, and surrealist publications.
With two major Dada exhibitions planned for 2006, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, MarcelDuchamp will be this year’s ultimate guide to the master of the movment.
[more]
Igor Stravinsky
Jonathan Cross
Reaktion Books, 2015
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) was perhaps the twentieth century’s most celebrated composer, a leading light of modernism and a restlessly creative artist. This new entry in the Critical Lives series traces the story of Stravinsky’s life and work, setting him in the context of the turbulent times in which he lived. Born in Russia, Stravinsky spent most of his life in exile—and while his work was deliberately cosmopolitan, the pain of estrangement nonetheless left its mark on the man and his work, distinguishable in an ever-present sense of loss. Jonathan Cross shows how that work emerged over the course of decades spent in Paris, Los Angeles, and elsewhere, in an artistic circle that included Joyce, Picasso, and Proust and that culminated in Stravinsky being celebrated by both the White House and the Kremlin as one of the great artistic forces of the era.
Approachable and absorbing, Cross’s biography enables us to see Stravinsky’s life and artistic achievement in a new light, understanding how his work both reflected and shaped his times.
Approachable and absorbing, Cross’s biography enables us to see Stravinsky’s life and artistic achievement in a new light, understanding how his work both reflected and shaped his times.
[more]
Warsaw
David Crowley
Reaktion Books, 2003
Warsaw has an unenviable reputation in the minds of many: often invoked as the epitome of the brutal environment produced by Soviet aesthetics and planning, its name conjures up a grey, faceless world of tower blocks and Orwellian governmental buildings; its image – perhaps more so than that of any other city in the former Soviet block – inextricably tied to the fate of the Communist system. Warsaw appears to have been locked in the vice of history – crushed by one totalitarian system, remade by another, only now being liberated by market forces. The history of this power play is only one of the stories that can be told about the life and environment of Warsaw; however, to those who live there or know the city well, Warsaw can be an exciting and stimulating place.
Avoiding the predictable pathways of conventional architectural and urban history writing, David Crowley reveals Warsaw’s visual and urban cultural history through narrative and anecdote, telling stories of the everyday, albeit in extraordinary circumstances. Warsaw examines the ways in which the fabric of the city has been shaped by Communist ideology since the late 1940s, and shows how the city has been spectacularly transformed since the introduction of a market economy in 1989. It also reflects on the ways in which the citizens of Warsaw use and enrich their living areas and the city they inhabit. In Warsaw, the past runs deep, and buildings are marked by myths and curses. David Crowley acts as our guide through this scarred yet uplifting terrain.
Avoiding the predictable pathways of conventional architectural and urban history writing, David Crowley reveals Warsaw’s visual and urban cultural history through narrative and anecdote, telling stories of the everyday, albeit in extraordinary circumstances. Warsaw examines the ways in which the fabric of the city has been shaped by Communist ideology since the late 1940s, and shows how the city has been spectacularly transformed since the introduction of a market economy in 1989. It also reflects on the ways in which the citizens of Warsaw use and enrich their living areas and the city they inhabit. In Warsaw, the past runs deep, and buildings are marked by myths and curses. David Crowley acts as our guide through this scarred yet uplifting terrain.
[more]
In the Service of the Shogun
The Real Story of William Adams
Frederik Cryns
Reaktion Books
A gripping biography of the English ship pilot who would become one of the most influential Westerners in feudal Japan.
In 1600, English helmsman William Adams washed ashore in Japan and was interrogated by Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japan’s most powerful warlord and soon-to-be shogun. Far from executing Adams as a pirate, Ieyasu made him one of his most trusted advisers. This biography traces Adams’s rise from a humble pilot to a position of immense influence in Japan’s foreign relations. It unravels the subsequent diplomatic maneuvers of the Western powers in the Shogun’s empire and Adams’s eventual downfall. The first full biography of Adams based on original Dutch, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese sources, In the Service of the Shogun includes much previously unknown information. Frederik Cryns tells the authentic story of Adams’s checkered life in its historical context, taking us on a compelling journey into Adams’s complex inner feelings and cosmopolitan heart.
In 1600, English helmsman William Adams washed ashore in Japan and was interrogated by Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japan’s most powerful warlord and soon-to-be shogun. Far from executing Adams as a pirate, Ieyasu made him one of his most trusted advisers. This biography traces Adams’s rise from a humble pilot to a position of immense influence in Japan’s foreign relations. It unravels the subsequent diplomatic maneuvers of the Western powers in the Shogun’s empire and Adams’s eventual downfall. The first full biography of Adams based on original Dutch, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese sources, In the Service of the Shogun includes much previously unknown information. Frederik Cryns tells the authentic story of Adams’s checkered life in its historical context, taking us on a compelling journey into Adams’s complex inner feelings and cosmopolitan heart.
[more]
Asteroids
Clifford J. Cunningham
Reaktion Books, 2021
Grounded in historical studies of asteroids from the nineteenth century, Asteroids is a fully up-to-date view of these remarkable objects. Without resorting to any technical diagrams or mathematics, Clifford J. Cunningham shows that asteroids are not just rocks in space, but key to understanding the life and death on Earth of both animals and humans. From space missions to the asteroids’ starring role in literature and film, Cunningham precisely and entertainingly looks at the place asteroids have in our solar system and how they affect our daily lives.
[more]
Wisdom
A History
Trevor Curnow
Reaktion Books, 2015
“There’s no fool like an old fool,” the saying goes. What is it about wisdom that sets it apart from mere intelligence? What is that elusive difference between a simple grasp of the facts and profound understanding? Wisdom has fascinated the human race for thousands of years; philosophers are notorious for being in love with it, and for centuries writers have tried to capture its essence in proverbs and fables. In this book, Trevor Curnow provides an accessible introduction to wisdom and the many ways we have thought about and tried to achieve it throughout history.
Drawing on examples from a diversity of eras and places—from ancient Egypt to medieval Europe to modern Africa—Curnow explores the ways we have sought to overcome the problems posed by our existence, such as love and death, with a steadfast wisdom. He shows how many cultures have attributed wisdom to deities such as Apollo, Odin, and Sarasvati, and how, especially, we have placed it within the vehicle of the proverb, which has safeguarded its lessons throughout time and across cultures.
Including a collection of one hundred sayings that offer a rich record of wisdom’s reification, this history gives new insight into what wisdom actually is and where we might find it.
Drawing on examples from a diversity of eras and places—from ancient Egypt to medieval Europe to modern Africa—Curnow explores the ways we have sought to overcome the problems posed by our existence, such as love and death, with a steadfast wisdom. He shows how many cultures have attributed wisdom to deities such as Apollo, Odin, and Sarasvati, and how, especially, we have placed it within the vehicle of the proverb, which has safeguarded its lessons throughout time and across cultures.
Including a collection of one hundred sayings that offer a rich record of wisdom’s reification, this history gives new insight into what wisdom actually is and where we might find it.
[more]
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