front cover of Vanilla
Vanilla
A Global History
Rosa Abreu-Runkel
Reaktion Books, 2020
Intoxicating and evocative, vanilla is so much more than a spice rack staple. It is a flavor that has defined the entire world—and its roots reach deep into the past. With its earliest origins dating back seventy million years, the history of vanilla begins in ancient Mesoamerica and continues to define and enhance today’s traditions and customs. It has been used by nearly every culture as a spice, a perfume, and even a potent aphrodisiac, while renowned figures from Louis XIV to Casanova and Thomas Jefferson have been captivated by its aroma and taste. Featuring recipes, facts, and fables, Vanilla unravels the delightfully rich history, mystery, and essence of a flavor that reconnects us to our own heritage.
[more]

front cover of Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay
A Visual Primer
Yves Abrioux
Reaktion Books, 1992
Superbly illustrated in both color and black and white, the revised and expanded edition of this celebrated book brings Finlay's career up to date.

"Ian Hamilton Finlay is one of the most diversely and richly talented visual artists living today ... This very handsomely produced book describes and illustrates [his] whole artistic career"—The World of Interiors

"This well-selected and finely printed presentation – much of it in colour – of poems, short stories, and photographs of non-printed materials is by far the fullest, most attractive and most persuasive account given to date of Finlay's many-faceted achievement"—The Times Literary Supplement

"It is good to see as intelligent a book as this being combined with a format which does its subject the honour due to him, but above all, this is a book which sets out to help the reader to understand an artist who requires thoughtful, unbiased contemplation"—Books in Scotland
[more]

front cover of The English Actor
The English Actor
From Medieval to Modern
Peter Ackroyd
Reaktion Books, 2023
Now in paperback, from a leading historian and writer, a delightful exploration of the great English tradition of treading the boards.
 
The English Actor charts the uniquely English approach to stagecraft, from the medieval period to the present day. In thirty chapters, Peter Ackroyd describes, with superb narrative skill, the genesis of acting—deriving from the Church tradition of Mystery Plays—through the flourishing of the craft in the Renaissance, to modern methods following the advent of film and television. Across centuries and media, The English Actor also explores the biographies of the most notable and celebrated British actors. From the first woman actor on the English stage, Margaret Hughes, who played Desdemona in 1660; to luminaries like Laurence Olivier, Peter O’Toole, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Helen Mirren; to contemporary multihyphenates like Gary Oldman, Kenneth Branagh, Sophie Okonedo, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ackroyd gives all fans of the theater an original and superbly entertaining appraisal of how actors have acted, how audiences have responded, and what we mean by the magic of the stage.
[more]

front cover of The English Soul
The English Soul
Faith of a Nation
Peter Ackroyd
Reaktion Books
From celebrated historian and writer Peter Ackroyd, a magisterial portrayal of English Christianity over the centuries.
 
This book portrays the spirit and nature of English Christianity, as it has developed over the last fourteen hundred years. During this time, Christianity has been the predominant faith of the people and the reflection of the English soul. This fascinating new history is an account of the Christian English soul, which recognizes the fact that Christianity has been the anchoring and defining doctrine of England while accepting respectfully that other powerful and significant faiths have influenced the religious sensibility of this nation. Peter Ackroyd surveys the lives and faith of the most important figures of English Christianity from the Venerable Bede to C. S. Lewis, exploring the mysticism of Julian of Norwich and William Blake; the tumultuous years of the Reformation; the emergence of the English bible; the evangelical tradition, including John Wesley; and the contemporary contest between tradition, revival, and atheism. This is an essential, comprehensive, and accessible survey of English Christianity.
[more]

front cover of Jan van Eyck within His Art
Jan van Eyck within His Art
Alfred Acres
Reaktion Books, 2023
A new assessment of the inventive and influential artist Jan van Eyck.
 
Jan van Eyck (1390–1441) was one of the most inventive and influential artists in the entire European tradition. The realism of his paintings continues to astound observers more than six centuries on, even though our world is saturated by high-resolution images. However, viewers today are as like to be absorbed by Van Eyck’s personality as his realism. While he sometimes directly painted himself into his works, he also suggested his presence through an array of inscriptions, signatures, and even a personal motto. Incorporating a wealth of new research and recent discoveries within a fresh exploration of the paintings themselves, this book reveals how profoundly Jan van Eyck transformed the very idea of what an artist could be.
[more]

front cover of Decadent Women
Decadent Women
Yellow Book Lives
Jad Adams
Reaktion Books, 2023
The never-before-told story of the extraordinary women behind a trailblazing British magazine.
 
During the 1890s, British women for the first time began to leave their family homes to seek work, accommodation, and financial and sexual freedom. Decadent Women is an account of some of these women who wrote for the innovative art and literary journal The Yellow Book. For the first time, and drawing on original research, Jad Adams describes the lives and work of these vibrant and passionate women, from well-connected and fashionable aristocrats to the desperately poor. He narrates the challenges they faced in a literary marketplace, and within a society that overwhelmingly favored men, showing how they were pioneers of a new style, living lives of lurid adventure and romance, as well as experiencing poverty, squalor, disease, and unwanted pregnancy.
[more]

front cover of Air
Air
Nature and Culture
Peter Adey
Reaktion Books, 2014
Outside of yoga class, we don’t pay too much attention to the air we take in every day. Long one of the essential elements to life on earth—from the atmospheric composition that gave life to the coal-forming forests some three hundred million years ago to the air that fuels our most important technologies today—we think little of its incredible properties. In this innovative cultural and scientific history, Peter Adey takes stock of the great ocean of air that surrounds us, exploring our attempts to understand, engineer, make sense of, and find meaning in it.
 
Adey examines how humans have managed and manipulated air as a natural resource and, in doing so, have been taken to the limits of survival, brought to high-altitude mountain peaks, subterranean worlds, and the troughs of new moral depths. Going beyond how vital air has been to our philosophical, scientific, and technological pursuits, he also reveals the way that the artistic and literary imagination has been lifted through air and how, in air, cultures have learned to express and inspire each other. Combining established figures such as Joseph Priestley, John Scott Haldane, and Marie Curie with unlikely individuals from painting, literature, and poetry, this richly illustrated book unlocks new perspectives into the science and culture of this pervasive but unnoticed substance.
[more]

front cover of Levitation
Levitation
The Science, Myth and Magic of Suspension
Peter Adey
Reaktion Books, 2017
Light as a feather, stiff as a board, light as a feather, stiff as board: anyone who has ever been to a slumber party can probably still conjure these words from deep within their psyche. Sure, anyone can fly these days so long as they have a credit card and government-issued ID, but what does it take to perform that more fundamental magic, to levitate? In this fascinating book, Peter Adey hovers over the peculiar stories of those who have dreamed of, believed in, or—can you believe your eyes—practiced levitation, offering a wide-ranging history of a unique phenomenon that can be found in countless cultures.
           
As Adey argues, levitation is best thought of as a pre- or parallel pursuit to that of aviation—but one that doesn’t cheat by employing aeronautical machinery. As he shows, many people have been certain that it is absolutely possible to float unaided. Early modern scientists believed in the force of levity as an opposite to that of gravity. Many traditional societies have deep-rooted shamanic traditions of spirit and dream flight. And many ancient religions have age-old accounts of ascetic saints hovering in sublime ecstasy. In more recent times, magicians and mesmerists have wowed audiences by seeming to float by the powers of thought alone. Science-fiction writers and urban planners alike have countless designs of floating cities hovering high above the earth, and even artists have experimented with levitation to find new forms of expression—one need just think of Yves Klein’s “Leap into the Void.”
           
Touching upon these and many other examples, Adey demonstrates how significant this magical act has been in our cultural, scientific, and spiritual lives. From poetry to philosophy to technology to even law, he lifts up levitation as a fascinating wonder in our shared imaginations.
 
[more]

front cover of Alle Thyng Hath Tyme
Alle Thyng Hath Tyme
Time and Medieval Life
Gillian Adler
Reaktion Books, 2023
An insightful account of how medieval people experienced time.
 
Alle Thyng Hath Tyme recreates medieval people’s experience of time as continuous, discontinuous, linear, and cyclical—from creation through judgment and into eternity. Medieval people measured time by natural phenomena such as sunrise and sunset, the motion of the stars, or the progress of the seasons, even as the late-medieval invention of the mechanical clock made time-reckoning more precise. Negotiating these mixed and competing systems, Gillian Adler and Paul Strohm show how medieval people gained a nuanced and expansive sense of time that rewards attention today.
 
[more]

front cover of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Jeremy Adler
Reaktion Books, 2020
This new critical biography provides a complete picture of German novelist, playwright, and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Offering fresh, thought-provoking interpretations of all Goethe’s major works, including novels such as The Sorrows of Young Werther and The Elective Affinities, plays such as Egmont and Iphigenia in Tauris, and Goethe’s greatest work, Faust, Jeremy Adler also provides many original readings of Goethe’s poetry, beginning with the poems written in his early youth. Alongside Goethe’s work, Adler analyzes the incidents of his life, including his love affairs and his meetings with the luminaries of his age, such as Napoleon Bonaparte. Uniquely, Adler also shows how Goethe’s encyclopedic interest in literature, science, philosophy, law, and many other fields became important for a wide range of later scientists and thinkers. Among the figures he influenced were Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, Émile Durkheim and Susan Sontag. Goethe has often been called the last Renaissance man. This biography shows that Goethe was in fact the first of the moderns—a maker of modernity.
[more]

front cover of Nuts
Nuts
A Global History
Ken Albala
Reaktion Books, 2014
From almonds and pecans to pistachios, cashews, and macadamias, nuts are as basic as food gets—just pop them out of the shell and into your mouth. The original health food, the vitamin-packed nut is now used industrially, in confectionary, and in all sorts of cooking. The first book to tell the full story of how nuts came to be in almost everything, Nuts takes readers on a gastronomic, botanical, and cultural tour of the world.
 
Tracking these fruits and seeds through cultivation, harvesting, processing, and consumption—or non-consumption, in the case of those with nut allergies—award-winning food writer Ken Albala provides a fascinating account on how they have been cooked, prepared, and exploited. He reveals the social and cultural meaning of nuts during various periods in history, while also immersing us in their modern uses. Packing scrumptious recipes, surprising facts, and fascinating nuggets inside its hardcover shell, this entertaining and informative book will delight lovers of almonds, hazelnuts, chestnuts, and more.
[more]

front cover of Pancake
Pancake
A Global History
Ken Albala
Reaktion Books, 2008
Round, thin, and made of starchy batter cooked on a flat surface, it is a food that goes by many names: flapjack, crêpe, and okonomiyaki, to name just a few. The pancake is a treasured food the world over, and now Ken Albala unearths the surprisingly rich history of pancakes and their sizzling goodness.

Pancake traverses over centuries and civilizations to examine the culinary and cultural importance of pancakes in human history. From the Russian blini to the Ethiopian injera, Albala reveals how pancakes have been a perennial source of sustenance from Greek and Roman eras to the Middle Ages through to the present day.  He explores how the pancake has gained symbolic currency in diverse societies as a comfort food, a portable victual for travelers, a celebratory dish, and a breakfast meal. The book also features a number of historic and modern recipes—tracing the first official pancake recipe to a sixteenth-century Dutch cook—and is accompanied by a rich selection of illustrations.

Pancake is a witty and erudite history of a well-known favorite and will ensure that the pancake will never be flattened under the shadow of better known foods.
 
[more]

front cover of Curious Devices and Mighty Machines
Curious Devices and Mighty Machines
Exploring Science Museums
Samuel J. M. M. Alberti
Reaktion Books, 2022
From their quirky origins to their contemporary role as centers of advocacy, a look at the secret lives of science museums—past, present, and future.
 
Science museums have paradoxes at their core. They must be accessible and fun while representing increasingly complex science. They must be both historic and contemporary. Their exhibits attract millions, but most of their objects remain in deep storage, seldom seen. This book delves into these conflicts, revealing the secret lives of science curators; where science objects come from and who uses them; and, ultimately, what science museums are for. With an insider’s eye, Samuel J. M. M. Alberti exposes the idiosyncratic past and intriguing current practices of these institutions—and sets out a map for their future.
[more]

front cover of Motorcycle
Motorcycle
Steven E. Alford
Reaktion Books, 2007
Easy Rider. Motocross Grand Prix. James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. The motorcycle is a global icon of untamed freedom, symbolizing a daring and reckless lifestyle of adventure. Yet there are few books that chronicle how and when this legendary vehicle roared down the open road. Motorcycle explores the roots of the rebel’s ultimate ride.

After early incarnations as a nineteenth-century steam-powered bicycle and multi-wheeled vehicles, the modern motorcycle came into its own as a cheap, mobile military asset during World War I. From there, it rapidly spread through modern culture as a symbol of rebellion and subversive power, and Motorcycle tracks the symbolic role that the bike has played in literature, art, and film. The authors also investigate the international subcultures that revolve around the motorcycle and scooter. They chart the emergence of American biker culture in the 1950s, when decommissioned fighter pilots sought new ways to satiate their desire for thrill and danger, and explore how the motorcycle came to represent the untamed nonconformity of the American West. In contrast, smaller scooters such as the Vespa and moped became the utilitarian vehicle of choice in space-starved metropolises across Europe and Asia. Ultimately, the authors argue, the motorbike is the exemplary Modernist object, dependent on the perfect balance of man and machine.

An unprecedented and wholly engrossing account, Motorcycle is an essential reading for the Harley-Davidson roadhog, bike collector, or anyone who’s felt the power of the unmistakable king of the road.
[more]

front cover of Animals in Religion
Animals in Religion
Devotion, Symbol and Ritual
Barbara Allen
Reaktion Books, 2016
Animals in Religion explores the role of animals within a wide range of religious traditions. Exploring countless stories and myths passed down orally and in many religious texts, Barbara Allen—herself a practicing minister—offers a fascinating history of the ways animals have figured in our spiritual lives, whether they have been Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any number of lesser-known religions.
           
Some of the figures here will be familiar, such as St. Francis of Assisi, famous for his accord with animals, or that beloved remover of obstacles, Ganesha, the popular elephant god in the Hindu pantheon. Delving deeper, Allen highlights the numerous ways that our religious practices have honored and relied upon our animal brethren. She examines the principle of ahimsa, or nonviolence, which has Jains sweeping the pathways before them so as not to kill any insects, as well as the similar principle in Judaism of ts’ar ba’alei chayim and the notion in some sects of Islam that all living creatures are Muslim. From ancient Egypt to the Druids to the indigenous cultures of North America and Australia, Allen tells story after story that emphasizes the same message: all species are spiritually connected. 
[more]

front cover of Pelican
Pelican
Barbara Allen
Reaktion Books, 2019
With its distinctive, comical walk, large bill, and association with the conservation movement, the pelican has attained iconic status. But as Barbara Allen reveals, this graceful skimmer of ocean waves has a checkered history. Originally classed as “unclean” in the King James Bible, the legend of the compassionate pelican was later appropriated by Christianity to symbolize Christ’s sacrifice. This majestic bird, gifted to British royalty in 1664, has been celebrated in art and literature, from Shakespeare’s King Lear to the writing of Edward Lear, and is the holder of three Guinness World Records. The pelican’s anatomy has been copied for paper plane construction, aircraft design, and in 3D imaging, and its resilience is as remarkable as its make-up: the pelican has rallied against threats of extinction, habitat destruction, and environmental disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A must-read book for all bird enthusiasts, Barbara Allen’s Pelican weaves together wildlife trivia, historical tales, and the latest research to provide an engaging, many-feathered account of this emblematic bird.
[more]

front cover of Pigeon
Pigeon
Barbara Allen
Reaktion Books, 2009

Our frequent urban companion, cooing in the eaves of train stations or scavenging underfoot for breadcrumbs and discarded French fries, the pigeon has many detractors—and even some fans. Written out of love for and fascination with this humble yet important bird, Barbara Allen’s Pigeon explores its cultural significance, as well as its similarities to and differences from its close counterpart, the dove. While the dove is seen as a symbol of love, peace, and goodwill, the pigeon is commonly perceived as a filthy, ill-mannered flying rodent, a “rat with wings.”

Readers will find in Pigeon an enticing exploration of the historical and contemporary bonds between humans and these two unique and closely related birds. For polluting statues and architecture, the pigeon has earned a bad reputation, but Barbara Allen offers several examples of the bird’s importance—as a source of food and fertilizer, a bearer of messages during times of war, a pollution monitor, and an aid to Charles Darwin in his pivotal research on evolutionary theory. Allen also comments on the literary love and celebration of pigeons and doves in the work of such writers and poets as Shakespeare, Dickens, Beatrix Potter, Proust, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Along the way, Allen corrects the many stereotypes about pigeons in the hope that the rich history of one of the oldest human-animal partnerships will be both admired and celebrated.

[more]

front cover of Otter
Otter
Daniel Allen
Reaktion Books, 2010

Although rarely seen in the wild, the otter is admired for its playful character and graceful aquatic agility, which were established in the popular imagination through books like Tarka the Otter and Ring of Bright Water. This, however, is just a very small part of their story—throughout history the otter has also been widely hunted for its fur and flesh.  In Otter, human geographer Daniel Allen reveals how the animal’s identity has been shaped by this variety of human interactions. 

As Allen explains, otters, while feared by some communities, were hunted to near extinction by others—killed for their valuable pelts in the north Pacific and chased with hounds for sport in Britain. In contrast, Allen describes how Native Americans revered the otter and how indigenous fishermen in parts of Asia trained otters to assist them. Sadly, now all thirteen species of otter are considered threatened, and their survival is by no means certain.

In this wide-ranging look at the otter, Allen incorporates anecdotes from folklore,  sports, popular literature, media, and conservation studies in order to unravel this complicated cultural history. Otter isa lively book that offers a new way of thinking about this admired and endangered animal.

[more]

front cover of Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Douglas Allen
Reaktion Books, 2011
The idea of nonviolent resistance is still as essential and almost as radical today as it was when Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) first pioneered in India the protest of political tyranny—in his case against British colonialism—through massive displays of civil disobedience. Gandhi’s ideas of peaceful protest went on to inspire the marches and sit-ins of the American Civil Rights movement and continue to be the foundations for political and social demonstrations around the world.
 
This biography by leading scholar Douglas Allen presents a new and challenging approach to understanding Gandhi’s life—the time in which he lived, how he shaped history, and how his philosophy and practices can be reformulated in ways that are significant and effective today. Allen analyzes his continuing relevance by addressing key issues of truth and ethics, violence and nonviolence, equality and freedom, as well as ideas of exploitation, oppression, religious conflict, and environmental crises.
 
Allen provides a much needed new perspective on Gandhi that allows us to rethink our basic values and priorities. By helping us understand Gandhi’s life and message, he creates a new paradigm for evaluating truth, nonviolence, peace, and morality; and  he offers new criteria for assessing our modern approach to standards of living, development, progress, and meaningful human existence.
[more]

front cover of Can It!
Can It!
The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
Gary Allen
Reaktion Books, 2016
What do beer, cheese, yogurt, sauerkraut, miso, jam, even chocolate—I’ll bet you didn’t know—have in common? They are all preserved foods. Artisanal canned tomatoes and homemade kimchee might be trendy items now, but they come from a culinary need as old as human civilization itself. Can It! celebrates those transformed and transforming foods that have done so much to create the diversity of cuisines found around the world, bringing readers on a tangy adventure of all the ways necessity has bred deliciousness.
           
Food preservation rests in a simple problem: food tends to come in concentrated periods of abundance and then quickly spoil. Today we might pump it full of preservatives or throw it in the freezer, but for most of our time eating the things that the earth provides, we haven’t had these luxuries. As Allen shows, that’s been a wonderful limitation: our ancestors, knowing next to nothing about organic chemistry, found consistent techniques not only to preserve the foods they grew but to alter them—to delicious effects. Wine is more than old grape juice, cheese more than spoiled milk. Allen details how these transformations resulted in new flavors, textures, and, ultimately, new ways of defining the tastes and culture of a community, which passed down its knowledge from generation to generation. Exploring the history and science of preservation, he examines all the major techniques—from drying to smoking to salting to canning to fermentation—reveling in the cornucopia of different foods they have produced. Allaying the fears of the squeamish, he serves up easy-to-do historic and modern recipes that will help any home cook participate in one of culinary history’s most hallowed traditions. 
[more]

front cover of Herbs
Herbs
A Global History
Gary Allen
Reaktion Books, 2012

Salsa and guacamole wouldn’t be the same without cilantro, and you can’t make pizza without oregano or a mojito without mint. You can use peppermint to settle an upset stomach, ease arthritis pain with stinging nettle, and heal burns and wounds with aloe vera. And then there is cannabis—perhaps the most notorious and divisive herb of all. Despite the fact that herbs are often little more than weeds, cultures around the globe have found hundreds of uses for them, employing them in everything from ancient medicines to savory dishes. While much has been written on cooking and healing with herbs, little has been told about the history of the plants themselves and the incredible journeys they have made.

This book elucidates how these often overlooked plants have become a staple in our lives. Unlike spices that quickly traversed the globe through trade, Gary Allen shows that herbs were often hoarded by their cultivators and were central to distinctive regional dishes. He draws on his extensive knowledge of food history to examine herbs in new ways, making Herbs essential reading for any serious foodie. Filled with beautiful illustrations and delicious recipes, this book will complete the kitchen library.
[more]

front cover of Sausage
Sausage
A Global History
Gary Allen
Reaktion Books, 2015
When you get right down to it, taking the intestine of an animal and stuffing it with the ground meat of that animal doesn’t really seem all that intuitive an approach to food preparation. But, as Gary Allen shows in this rich and engaging history, people worldwide have been making sausage for thousands of years. A veritable alphabet of sausages, from the Cajun andouille—and its less spicy forerunner, a French saucisson of the same name––and Mexican chorizo all the way to the Italian zampone, Allen tells a story of relentless creativity and invention, as different cultures found countless delectable ways to transform these otherwise unappealing pieces of meat. Allen peppers his account with examples from all over the world, as well as antique posters and advertisements, artworks and cartoons; together, they build a picture of a food that has been beloved—even as it’s scoffed at—throughout human history, and remains a spicy favorite today.
[more]

front cover of The Global Economic Crisis
The Global Economic Crisis
A Chronology
Larry Allen
Reaktion Books, 2013
From Greece scrambling to meet Eurozone austerity measures to America’s sluggish job growth, there is every indication that the world has not recovered from the economic implosion of 2008. And for many of us, the details of what led to the recession—and why it has continued—remain murky. Economic historian Larry Allen clears up the subject in The Global Economic Crisis, offering an insightful and nonpartisan chronology of events and their consequences. Illuminating the interlocked economic processes that lay beneath the crisis, he analyzes the changing nature of the global financial system, central bank policies, housing bubbles, deregulation, sovereign debt crises, and more.
 
Allen begins the timeline with the economic crisis in Japan in the late 1990s, asking whether Japan’s experience could be an indicator of the outcome of the recession and what it can teach us about managing a sluggish economy. He then takes a comparative look at the economies of Brazil, China, and India. Throughout, he argues that many elements have contributed to the ongoing crisis, including the introduction of the euro, the growth of new financial instruments such as securitization, collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps, interest rate policies, and the housing boom and subprime mortgage fiasco.
 
Lucid and informative, The Global Economic Crisis provides an impartial explanation to anyone seeking to understand the current state—and future—of the world’s economy.
[more]

front cover of The Global Economic System since 1945
The Global Economic System since 1945
Larry Allen
Reaktion Books, 2005
The strictly mathematical foundation of conventional economic theories has resulted in circumscribed analyses of world economic history. Larry Allen's groundbreaking The Global Economic System since 1945, in contrast, re-evaluates world economic history in a context that recognizes and avoids the inherent limitations of mathematical models.

The Global Economic System since 1945 does not shun economic theory, but rather uses it as a tool to reassess recent world economic history. Allen describes how, starting at the end of World War Two, powerful corporations lobbied governments in an effort to reduce the perceived constraints of regulation. In the past twenty-five years these voices have grown increasingly influential, as governments worldwide adopted free-market policies, reduced economic regulation, and promoted the virtues of free-market capitalism.

The Global Economic System since 1945 presents a fresh and wide-ranging synthesis of economic history and theory that will be valuable to both scholars and curious participants in today's global economy.
[more]

front cover of Global Financial System 1750-2000
Global Financial System 1750-2000
Larry Allen
Reaktion Books, 2001
This book traces the evolution of the highly integrated global financial system from 1750 to the present. It examines the corporate form of business organization in the 18th century that saw an explosion of growth in the 19th, which facilitated the international movement of capital. The author also deals with the parallel growth of financial markets and explains how the need to finance public debts paved the way for stock markets as well as outlining the role of private merchant bankers, who originated as international bankers with family-run offices across Europe. He charts the development of banks into public corporations and follows the evolution of modern paper money, explaining the emergence of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. While tracing the development of foreign-exchange markets and the history of trading blocs, the book also examines how economic powers such as Britain and France used access to capital to wield power in less-developed parts of the world. Finally, a history of financial crises is presented, revealing how economic shocks reverberate from one country to another today through the global financial network.
[more]

front cover of René Magritte
René Magritte
Patricia Allmer
Reaktion Books, 2019
The Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte redefined the way we think about art. Famous for his men in bowler hats, he inspired generations of later artists from Andy Warhol to Jasper Johns with his witty and provocative work. In this illuminating new biography, Patricia Allmer radically repositions Magritte’s work in relation to its historical and cultural circumstances. Allmer explores the significant influence of events and experiences in Magritte’s early childhood and youth that are recorded in his letters and essays, including his memories of visiting fairs and circuses, of magical shows and performances, of the cinema, and, in particular, of his first encounter with his future partner, Georgette, on a carousel.

Allmer’s analyses of these events and their influence on both well-known and less familiar images give new insights into Magritte’s art. The book will appeal to those who wish to know more about Magritte’s life and work, as well as to the wide audience for surrealism.
[more]

front cover of The Wig
The Wig
A Hairbrained History
Luigi Amara
Reaktion Books, 2020
Whether in a court room or a dressing room, wigs come in many forms and represent many things: from power, to sexuality, to parody, to health, to self-identity, to disguise. Wigs are present at parties and in chemotherapy rooms, in pop music and contemporary art. In this witty and eloquent book, Luigi Amara reflects on the curious history of the wig and along the way takes a sideways look at Western civilization. Amara illuminates how the wig has starred throughout history, from ancient Egypt to the court of Louis XIV, and from British courtrooms to drag shows today. Containing many striking and unusual images, The Wig will appeal to all those interested in the history of fashion—as well as philosophy, art, culture, and aesthetics.
[more]

front cover of Everyday Life
Everyday Life
How the Ordinary Became Extraordinary
Joseph A. Amato
Reaktion Books, 2016
Most of the stories we tell are about great feats, dangerous journeys, or daring confrontations—exceptional moments in our existence. But what about how we live every single day? In Everyday Life, Joseph A. Amato offers an account of daily existence that reminds us how important the quotidian is. Ranging across social, economic, and cultural history—as well as anthropology, folklore, and technology—he explores how and why the pattern of our lives has changed and developed over time.
            Amato examines the common facts and occurrences in lives from all spheres, whether of a pauper or a noble, a criminal or state official, or a lunatic or a philosopher. Such facts include basic aspects of human existence, such as play, work, conflict, and healing, as well the logistics of survival, such as housing, clothing, cleaning, cooking, animals, plants, and machines. Tracing core historical developments like efficiency of production and greater mobility, Amato shows how we became modern in everyday ways. He explores how, paradoxically, commerce, technology, design,  industrialization, nationalism, and democratization—which have so undercut traditional culture and have homogenized, centralized, and secularized masses of people—have also profoundly transformed daily life, affording citizens with materially improved  lives, individual rights, and productive and rewarding expectations.
            A wide-ranging account of lives throughout history, this book gives us new insights into our own condition, showing us how extraordinary the ordinary can be.
 
[more]

front cover of Berries
Berries
A Global History
Heather Arndt Anderson
Reaktion Books, 2018
Cheerfully offering themselves to passersby, berries have been juicy staples of the human diet for millennia. They are good luck charms and amulets to some, portents of doom to others. They inspire everything from lip gloss flavors to amusement parks (Knott’s Berry Farm, anyone?)—but eat some varieties and your days will be numbered. We create special bowls and spoons for their presentation and consumption, and without them, there would be no Neapolitan ice cream, and jam would be nothing but a marmalade (though oranges are technically berries, too). However diminutive their stature, berries are of such significance to Northern and Eastern Europeans that picking them in the wild is deemed “everyman’s right,” an act interwoven with cultural identity.

In Berries, Heather Arndt Anderson uncovers the offbeat stories of how humans came to love these tiny, bewildering fruits. Readers meet the inventor of thornless brambles; learn ancient fables and berry-lore; discover berries’ uses in both poisonous witches’ brews and modern superfood health crazes. Featuring a selection of historic and original recipes for berry lovers to try, this is a witty and lushly illustrated ramble through the curious history of our favorite fruits, from interlopers like strawberries (not true berries) to the real deal: tomatoes.
[more]

front cover of Chillies
Chillies
A Global History
Heather Arndt Anderson
Reaktion Books, 2016
There are some of us who can’t even stand to look at them—and others who can’t live without them: chillies have been searing tongues and watering eyes for centuries in innumerable global cuisines. In this book, Heather Arndt Anderson explores the many ways nature has attempted to take the roofs of our mouths off—from the deceptively vegetal-looking jalapeno to the fire-red ghost pepper—and the many ways we have gleefully risen to the challenge.
            Anderson tells the story of the spicy berry’s rise to prominence, showing that it was cultivated and venerated by the ancient people of Mesoamerica for millennia before Spanish explorers brought it back to Europe. She traces the chilli’s spread along trading routes to every corner of the globe, and she explores the many important spiritual and cultural links that we have formed with it, from its use as an aphrodisiac to, in more modern times, an especially masochistic kind of eating competition. Ultimately, she uses the chili to tell a larger story of global trade, showing how the spread of spicy cuisine can tell us much about the global exchange—and sometimes domination—of culture. Mixing history, botany, and cooking, this entertaining read will give your bookshelf just the kick it needs.
 
[more]

front cover of Russia
Russia
Modern Architectures in History
Richard Anderson
Reaktion Books, 2015
This book offers a comprehensive account of Russia’s architectural production from the late nineteenth century to the present, explaining how its architecture was both shaped by and came to embody Russia’s rapid cultural, economic, and social revolutions over the past century.
           
Richard Anderson looks at Russia’s complex relationship to global architectural culture, exploring the country’s central presence in the Rationalism and Constructivism movements of the 1920s, as well as its role as a key protagonist during the Cold War. Looking deeply at Soviet Russia, he brings the relationship between architecture and socialism into focus through detailed case studies that situate buildings and architectural concepts within the socialist milieu of Soviet society. He tracks the way Russian architectural institutions departed from the course of modernism being developed in capitalist countries, and he reappraises the architecture of the Stalin era and the final decades of the USSR. Finally, he traces the influence of Soviet conventions on contemporary Russian architecture—which is now a more heterogeneous mix of approaches and styles— and how it made a lasting and little-known impact on territories extending from the Middle East, to Central Asia, and into China.
           
A bold new assessment of Russia’s architectural legacy and contemporary contributions, this book is a fascinating exploration of a tumultuous place—and the creativity that has come from it. 
[more]

front cover of Way Makers
Way Makers
An Anthology of Women’s Writing about Walking
Kerri Andrews
Reaktion Books, 2023
A sweeping collection of women’s writing on the wandering path, moving across genres, geographies, and centuries.
 
The follow-up to the celebrated Wanderers, Kerri Andrews’s Way Makers is the first anthology of women’s writing about walking. Moving from Elizabeth Carter’s correspondence with Catherine Talbot in the eighteenth century through to Merryn Glover in the present day, and across poetry, letters, diaries, novels, and more, this anthology traces a long tradition of women’s walking literature. Walking is, for the women included in this anthology, a source of creativity and comfort; it is a means of expressing grief, longing, and desire. It is also a complicated activity: it represents freedom but is also sometimes tinged with danger and fear. What cannot be denied any longer is that walking was, and continues to be, an activity full of physical and emotional significance for women: this anthology is a testament to the rich literary heritage created by generations of women walker-writers over the centuries.
[more]

front cover of Wanderers
Wanderers
A History of Women Walking
Kerri Andrews
Reaktion Books, 2021
Offering a beguiling view of the history of walking, Wanderers guides us through the different ways of seeing—of being—articulated by ten pathfinding women writers.

“A wild portrayal of the passion and spirit of female walkers and the deep sense of ‘knowing’ that they found along the path.”—Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path

 
“I opened this book and instantly found that I was part of a conversation I didn't want to leave. A dazzling, inspirational history.”—Helen Mort, author of No Map Could Show Them

This is a book about ten women over the past three hundred years who have found walking essential to their sense of themselves, as people and as writers. Wanderers traces their footsteps, from eighteenth-century parson’s daughter Elizabeth Carter—who desired nothing more than to be taken for a vagabond in the wilds of southern England—to modern walker-writers such as Nan Shepherd and Cheryl Strayed. For each, walking was integral, whether it was rambling for miles across the Highlands, like Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, or pacing novels into being, as Virginia Woolf did around Bloomsbury. Offering a beguiling view of the history of walking, Wanderers guides us through the different ways of seeing—of being—articulated by these ten pathfinding women.
[more]

front cover of A Sweet View
A Sweet View
The Making of an English Idyll
Malcolm Andrews
Reaktion Books, 2021
From country lanes to thatch roofs, a stroll through the enduring appeal of the nineteenth-century trope of rural English bliss.
 
A Sweet View explores how writers and artists in the nineteenth century shaped the English countryside as a partly imaginary idyll, with its distinctive repertoire of idealized scenery: the village green, the old country churchyard, hedgerows and cottages, scenic variety concentrated into a small compass, snugness and comfort. The book draws on a very wide range of contemporary sources and features some of the key makers of the “South Country” rural idyll, including Samuel Palmer, Myles Birket Foster, and Richard Jefferies. The legacy of the idyll still influences popular perceptions of the essential character of a certain kind of English landscape—indeed for Henry James that imagery constituted “the very essence of England” itself. As A Sweet View makes clear, the countryside idyll forged over a century ago is still with us today.
[more]

front cover of A New Philosophy of History
A New Philosophy of History
Frank Ankersmit
Reaktion Books, 1995
What is history? From Thucydides to Toynbee historians and nonhistorians alike have wondered how to answer this question. A New Philosophy of History reflects on developments over the last two decades in historical writing, not least the renewed interest in the status of narrative itself and the presence of the authorial "voice." Subjects include the problems of Grand Narrative, multiple voices and the personal presence of the historian in his text, the ambitions of the French Annales school and the so-called "Grand Chronicler," and the relevance of non-literary models—museum presentations and picturings—regarding historical discourse.

The range of approaches found in A New Philosophy of History ensures that this book will establish itself as required reading not only for historians, but for everyone interested in literary theory, philosophy, or cultural studies.

This volume presents essays by Hans Kellner, Nancy F. Partner, Richard T. Vann, Arthur C. Danto, Linda Orr, Philippe Carrard, Ann Rigney, Allan Megill, Robert Berkhofer, Stephen Bann, and Frank Ankersmit.
[more]

front cover of Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Gannit Ankori
Reaktion Books, 2013
Frida Kahlo stepped into the limelight in 1929 when she married Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. She was twenty-two; he was forty-three. Hailed as Rivera’s exotic young wife who “dabbles in art,” she went on to produce brilliant paintings but remained in her husband’s shadow throughout her life. Today, almost six decades after her untimely death, Kahlo’s fame rivals that of Rivera and she has gained international acclaim as a path-breaking artist and a cultural icon.
 
Cutting through “Fridamania,” this book explores Kahlo’s life, art, and legacies, while also scrutinizing the myths, contradictions, and ambiguities that riddle her dramatic story. Gannit Ankori examines Kahlo’s early childhood, medical problems, volatile marriage, political affiliations, religious beliefs, and, most important, her unparalleled and innovative art. Based on detailed analyses of the artist’s paintings, diary, letters, photographs, medical records, and interviews, the book also assesses Kahlo’s critical impact on contemporary art and culture.
 
Kahlo was of her time, deeply immersed in the issues that dominated the first half of the twentieth century. Yet, as this book reveals, she was also ahead of her time. Her paintings challenged social norms and broke taboos, addressing themes such as the female body, gender, cross-dressing, hybridity, identity, and trauma in ways that continue to inspire contemporary artists across the globe. Frida Kahlo is a succinct and powerful account of the life, art and legacy of this iconic artist.
[more]

front cover of Palestinian Art
Palestinian Art
Gannit Ankori
Reaktion Books, 2005
Turmoil and violence have defined the lives of Palestinian people over the last few decades, yet in the midst of the chaos artists live and thrive, creating little-seen work that is a powerful response to their situation. Gannit Ankori's Palestinian Art is the first in-depth English-language assessment of contemporary Palestinian art, and it offers an unprecedented and wholly original overview of this art in all its complexity.

Ankori comprehensively traces the full history and development of Palestinian art, from its roots in folk art and traditional Christian and Islamic painting to the predominance of nationalistic themes and diverse media used today. Drawing on over a decade of extensive research, studio visits, and interviews, Ankori explores the vast oeuvre of prominent contemporary Palestinian artists, navigating between the personal and biographical dimensions of specific artworks and the symbolic meanings embedded within them. She provides detailed interpretations of many works and considers the complex historical, geographical, political, and cultural contexts in which the art was created. Questions of gender, exile, colonialism, postcolonialism, and hybridity are integral to Ankori's investigation as she probes the influence and thematic dominance of issues such as rootedness and displacement in Palestinian art. 

Palestinian Art is a fascinating introduction to a virtually unknown visual culture that has been subsumed under the torrent of current political turmoil. A groundbreaking and essential work of art scholarship, Palestinian Art illuminates new and unique facets of the Palestinian cultural identity.
[more]

logo for Reaktion Books
J.-K. Huysmans
Ruth Antosh
Reaktion Books
A critical biography of a major novelist and art critic from the late nineteenth-century French decadent movement.

J.-K. Huysmans (1848–1907) is often hailed as a forerunner of modernist letters. While his novel À rebours / Against Nature remains infamous for its reclusive protagonist retreating into a realm of artifice and dreams, Huysmans’s literary contributions are far-reaching. Ruth Antosh explores Huysmans’s life and work, illustrating how both reflect an uneasy era of profound social and artistic change. In this context, Huysmans’s correspondence, early fiction, art criticism, and surrealist novel En rade / Stranded demand greater critical attention. Antosh argues that Huysmans’s life should be understood as an unwavering quest for spiritual and aesthetic fulfillment.
[more]

front cover of Mapping the Middle East
Mapping the Middle East
Zayde Antrim
Reaktion Books, 2018
Mapping the Middle East explores the many ways people have visualized the vast area lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the Oxus and Indus River Valleys over the past millennium. By analyzing maps produced from the eleventh century on, Zayde Antrim emphasizes the deep roots of mapping in a region too often considered unexamined and unchanging before the modern period. As Antrim argues, better-known maps from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—a period coinciding with European colonialism and the rise of the nation-state—not only obscure this rich past, but also constrain visions for the region’s future.

Organized chronologically, Mapping the Middle East addresses the medieval “Realm of Islam;” the sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire; French and British colonialism through World War I; nationalism in modern Turkey, Iran, and Israel/Palestine; and alternative geographies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Vivid color illustrations throughout allow readers to compare the maps themselves with Antrim’s analysis. Much more than a conventional history of cartography, Mapping the Middle East is an incisive critique of the changing relationship between maps and belonging in a dynamic world region over the past thousand years.
[more]

front cover of Dishing It Out
Dishing It Out
In Search of the Restaurant Experience
Robert Appelbaum
Reaktion Books, 2011
 
From the hamburger haven to the temple of gastronomy, the restaurant is a fixture of modern life. But why is that so? What needs has the restaurant come to satisfy, and what needs has it come to impose upon the experience of the modern world? In Dishing It Out, Robert Appelbaum travels around America and Europe and through the annals of literature and history to explore the social meaning of the restaurant—and to discover what we ought to be asking of the restaurant experience today.
 
Since its founding in pre-Revolutionary France, the restaurant has always inspired contradictory feelings and served contradictory purposes. It has stood for a kind of liberation: the embrace of pleasure and sociability for their own sake. But it has also encouraged narcissistic consumerism at the cost of the exploitation of restaurant workers, and the self-deception of restaurant-goers. Drawing on the work of such writers as Grimod de la Reynière, Jean-Paul Sartre, Isak Dinesen and M.F.K. Fisher, and sampling fare from macaroni cheese in workaday London to oysters and sausages in seaside France, Appelbaum argues that though restaurants are inherently problematic as social institutions, they are characteristic of who and what we are. They are expressions of what we need as human beings. And for that reason, though they contribute to inequality they can also be used to promote the interests of cultural democracy.
 
A unique rethinking of the restaurant experience, at once entertaining and learned, Dishing it Out is an important contribution to our knowledge of food, literature, history and society.

[more]

front cover of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
J. David Archibald
Reaktion Books, 2021
A fresh account of Charles Darwin’s rich personal and professional lives, well beyond On the Origin of Species.
 
In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. With this bedrock of biology books, Darwin carved a new origin-story for all life: evolution rather than creation. But this single book is not the whole story. In this new biography, J. David Archibald describes and analyzes Darwin’s prodigious body of work and complex relationships with colleagues, as well as his equally productive home life—he lived with his wife and seven surviving children in the bustling environs of Down House, south of London. There, among his family and friends, Darwin continued to experiment and write many more books on orchids, sex, emotions, and earthworms until his death in 1882, when he was honored with burial at Westminster Abbey. This is a fresh, up-to-date account of the life and work of a most remarkable man.
[more]

front cover of Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace
Patrick Armstrong
Reaktion Books, 2019
Sometimes referred to as the “Father of Biogeography,” Alfred Russel Wallace has come to be known as the co-originator of the theory of evolution through natural selection, and he also wrote extensively on zoology, botany, anthropology, politics, astronomy, and psychology. Although notorious in his day for his unpopular and eccentric beliefs, he is still recognized as one of the leading figures in nineteenth-century British science.

In this book, Patrick Armstrong illuminates the many facets of Wallace’s long life, which extended from 1823 until the eve of World War I. He shows Wallace to be, in many ways, a more interesting character than his colleague and friend, evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin. Taking a psychological approach, this compact yet comprehensive biography gives insight into a man who was frequently plagued with misfortune; legal problems, inability to obtain full-time employment, and relationship troubles all vexed him. Armstrong unlocks the life of a restless traveler who, although raised with “a very ordinary” education, would go on to become one of the most influential, extraordinary scientists of his time.
[more]

front cover of Richard Owen
Richard Owen
Patrick Armstrong
Reaktion Books, 2023
A biography of the provocative nineteenth-century English naturalist.
 
Brilliant, hard-working, and immensely productive, the naturalist Richard Owen was a great ambassador for science and played an outsized role in shaping London’s Natural History Museum. Still, Owen was a provocative bully, accused of plagiarism, and the only man Charles Darwin claimed to hate since Owen staunchly opposed his ideas about natural selection despite sharing similar views himself. This biography gives an account of Owen’s life and work and offers some speculation about the reasons behind his controversial behavior and strained relationships.
[more]

front cover of Sheep
Sheep
Philip Armstrong
Reaktion Books, 2016
The ancient Egyptians worshipped them, the Romans dressed them in fitted coats, and the Christians associated them with their divine savior. In Sheep, Philip Armstrong traces the natural and cultural history of both wild and domestic species of ovis, from the Old World mouflon to the corkscrew-horned flocks of the Egyptians, from the Trojan sheep of Homer’s Odyssey to the cannibal sheep of Thomas More’s Utopia, from the vast migratory mobs of Spanish merinos all the way to Dolly—the first animal we have ever cloned—and Haruki Murakami’s sheep-human hybrids.
           
As Armstrong shows, humans have treated sheep with awe, cruelty or disdain for many thousands of years. Our exploitation of them for milk, meat, and wool—but also for artistic and cultural purposes—has shaped both our history and theirs. Despite all that we owe them we have often dismissed sheep as the least witted and least interesting of mammals: to be accused of “sheepishness” or behaving “like a flock of sheep” is to be denigrated for lack of courage, individuality, or will. Yet, as this book demonstrates, sheep actually possess highly sophisticated social skills and emotional intelligence. Above all, Sheep demonstrates that sometimes the most mundane animals turn out to be the most surprising.
[more]

front cover of Dragon
Dragon
Fear and Power
Martin Arnold
Reaktion Books, 2018
From the fire-breathing beasts of North European myth and legend to the Book of Revelation’s Great Red Dragon of Hell, from those supernatural agencies of imperial authority in ancient China to the so-called dragon-women who threaten male authority, dragons are a global phenomenon, one that has troubled humanity for thousands of years. These often scaly beasts take a wide variety of forms and meanings, but there is one thing they all have in common: our fear of their formidable power and, as a consequence, our need either to overcome, appease, or in some way assume that power as our own.

In this fiery cultural history, Martin Arnold asks how these unifying impulses can be explained. Are they owed to our need to impose order on chaos in the form of a dragon-slaying hero? Is it our terror of nature, writ large, unleashed in its most destructive form? Or is the dragon nothing less than an expression of that greatest and most disturbing mystery of all: our mortality? Tracing the history of ideas about dragons from the earliest of times to Game of Thrones, Arnold explores exactly what it might be that calls forth such creatures from the darkest corners of our collective imagination.
[more]

front cover of Gypsy Music
Gypsy Music
The Balkans and Beyond
Alan Ashton-Smith
Reaktion Books, 2017
Gypsies have for centuries been simultaneously vilified and romanticized—associated with criminality and dirt, but at the same time with color, magic, and music. Gypsy music is popular around the world and often performed with gusto at major events, including at weddings in Bulgaria, jazz bars in Paris, and festivals in the United States.

In Gypsy Music, Alan Ashton-Smith explores why this music has such wide appeal, surveying the varied styles that are considered to be gypsy music and asking what links them together. The book begins in the Balkans, home to the world’s largest Romani populations and a major site of gypsy music production. But just as the traditionally nomadic Roma have traveled globally, so has their music. Gypsy music styles have roots and associations outside of the Balkans, including Russian Romani guitar music, flamenco and gypsy jazz, and the more recent forms of gypsy punk and Balkan beats.

Covering the thirteenth century to the present day, and with a geographical scope that ranges from rural Romania to New York by way of Budapest, Moscow, and Andalusia, Gypsy Music reveals the remarkable diversity of this exuberant art form.
[more]

front cover of Cosplay and the Dressing of Identity
Cosplay and the Dressing of Identity
Vivian Asimos
Reaktion Books, 2024
Featuring several images of cosplay, a fun and fascinating look at the power and meaning of this cultural phenomenon.
 
Cosplay, born from the fusion of “costume” and “play,” transcends mere dress-up by transforming enthusiasts of TV shows, movies, books, or video games into living embodiments of their cherished characters. This book is a close exploration of the vibrant world of cosplay, showing what makes it so captivating for so many. Vivian Asimos frames cosplay as an enactment and embodiment of mythology, revealing its inherent complexity, and in so doing, provides valuable insight into cosplayers’ experiences.
 
Exploring cosplay performances, the skills involved, and its community, she shows how cosplayers build a strong connection to the characters and stories they treasure, and ultimately how they are constructing their own identities.
[more]

front cover of Art and Religion in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Art and Religion in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Nigel Aston
Reaktion Books, 2009
Eighteenth-century Europe witnessed monumental upheavals in both the Catholic and Protestant faiths and the repercussions rippled down to the churches’ religious art forms. Nigel Aston now chronicles here the intertwining of cultural and institutional turmoil during this pivotal century.

            The sustained popularity of religious art in the face of competition from increasingly prevalent secular artworks lies at the heart of this study. Religious art staked out new spaces of display in state institutions, palaces, and private collections, the book shows, as well as taking advantage of patronage from monarchs such as Louis XIV and George III, who funded religious art in an effort to enhance their monarchial prestige. Aston also explores the motivations and exhibition practices of private collectors and analyzes changing Catholic and Protestant attitudes toward art. The book also examines purchases made by corporate patrons such as charity hospitals and religious confraternities and considers what this reveals about the changing religiosity of the era as well.
 
An in-depth historical study, Art and Religion in Eighteenth-Century Europe will be essential for art history and religious studies scholars alike.
 
[more]

front cover of Plato
Plato
A Civic Life
Carol Atack
Reaktion Books, 2024
A new reading of Plato’s philosophy that reveals it as deeply shaped by his experiences in Athens.
 
Plato is a key figure from the beginnings of Western philosophy, yet the impact of his lived experience on his thought has rarely been explored. Born during a war that would lead to Athens’ decline, Plato lived in turbulent times. Carol Atack explores how Plato’s life in Athens influenced his thought, how he developed the Socratic dialogue into a powerful philosophical tool, and how he used the institutions of Athenian society to create a compelling imaginative world. Accessibly written, this book shows how Plato made Athens the place where diverse ideas were integrated into a new way of approaching the big questions about our lives, then and now.
[more]

front cover of Liquid City
Liquid City
Second Expanded Edition
Marc Atkins
Reaktion Books, 2016
The eccentric, manic, and often moving collaborative explorations of London’s hidden streets, cemeteries, parks, canals, pubs, and personalities by photographer Marc Atkins and writer Iain Sinclair were first recorded in Sinclair’s highly acclaimed 1997 book Lights Out for the Territory, praised in the Guardian as “one of the most remarkable books ever written on London.” Liquid City is a splendid follow-up—presented here in an updated format and with a new introduction and additional images—documenting Atkins and Sinclair’s further peregrinations through the city’s eastern and south-eastern quadrants, famous as London’s grittier but culturally rich quarters.  

An array of famous and lesser-known writers, booksellers, and film-makers slip in and out of Sinclair’s annotations, as do memories and remnants of the East End’s criminal mobs and physical landmarks as diverse as the Thames barrier and Karl Marx’s grave in Archway cemetery. All of it is documented in Atkins’s striking, atmospheric photographs and Sinclair’s impressionistic prose that marries psychology with geography. Cued by the title, readers will follow the Thames as it flows silently through the photographic and textual narrative, traversing a city that is always fluid, full at once of continuities and surprises. 
[more]

front cover of Amplified
Amplified
A Design History of the Electric Guitar
Paul Atkinson
Reaktion Books, 2021
"For me, a truly compelling, fact-packed read all about how guitars are made, look, sound, and play. Atkinson admirably recounts a century of history, invention, and experimentation by experts and amateurs of a revolutionary instrument. Highly recommended for anyone who has a guitar, and for anyone who wants one."—KT Tunstall, singer-songwriter and guitarist
 
"Atkinson has put a fantastically exhaustive amount of work into this book for all of us global guitar nerds to enjoy. It’s so much fun to dive into it full immersion, and glean everything from details on iconic artist guitars to strange inventions from creatives on the fringe!"—Jennifer Batten, guitarist (Michael Jackson, Jeff Beck)
 
“A great resource for all guitar players, tinkerers, and enthusiasts. Atkinson’s well-researched book provides essential and fascinating facts of this unique instrument’s development over the course of more than a century.”—Paul Brett, rock guitarist, journalist, guitar designer
 
“Atkinson has dug deep into the history of the electric guitar to create a detailed view of the ways in which makers and musicians have tried—and in many cases succeeded—to move its design forward. This engaging new book will be required reading for anyone interested in the development of one of the most popular and revolutionary instruments ever created.”—Tony Bacon, guitar historian and author

An in-depth look at the invention and development of the electric guitar, this book explores how the electric guitar’s design has changed and what its design over the years has meant for its sound. A heavily illustrated history with amps turned up to eleven, Amplified celebrates this beloved instrument and reveals how it has evolved through the experiments of amateur makers and part-time tinkerers. Digging deep into archives and featuring new interviews with makers and players, it will find admirers in all shredders, luthiers, and fans of electric sound.
[more]

front cover of Computer
Computer
Paul Atkinson
Reaktion Books, 2010

The pixelated rectangle we spend most of our day staring at in silence is not the television as many long feared, but the computer—the ubiquitous portal of work and personal lives. At this point, the computer is almost so common we don’t notice it in our view. It’s difficult to envision that not that long ago it was a gigantic, room-sized structure only to be accessed by a few inspiring as much awe and respect as fear and mystery. Now that the machine has decreased in size and increased in popular use, the computer has become a prosaic appliance, little-more noted than a toaster. These dramatic changes, from the daunting to the ordinary, are captured in Computer by design historian Paul Atkinson.

Here, Atkinson chronicles the changes in physical design of the computer and shows how these changes in design are related to changes in popular attitude. Atkinson is fascinated by how the computer has been represented and promoted in advertising. For example, in contrast to ads from the 1970s and ’80s, today’s PC is very PC—genderless, and largely status free. Computer also considers the role of the computer as a cultural touchstone, as evidenced by its regular appearance in popular culture, including the iconography of the space age, HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, James Bond’s gadgetry, and Stars War and Star Trek.

Computer covers many issues ignored by other histories of computing, which have focused on technology and the economics involved in their production, but rarely on the role of fashion in the physical design and promotion of computers and their general reception. The book will appeal to professionals and students of design and technology as well as those interested in the history of computers and how they have shaped—and been shaped by—our lives.

[more]

front cover of Lamestains
Lamestains
Grunge, Sub Pop and the Music of the Loser
Nicholas Attfield
Reaktion Books, 2023
A surprising history of Seattle’s Sub Pop Records, pioneer of grunge . . . and champion of losers.
 
This book is a critical history of Sub Pop Records, the Seattle independent rock label that launched the careers of countless influential grunge bands in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It focuses in particular on the languages and personas of the “loser,” a term that encompassed the label’s founders and personnel, its flagship bands (including Mudhoney, TAD, and Nirvana), and the avid vinyl-collecting fans it rapidly amassed. The loser became (and remains) the key Sub Pop identity, but it also grounded the label in the overt masculinity, sexism, and transgression of rock history. Rather than the usual reading of grunge as an alternative to the mainstream, Lamestains reveals a more equivocal and complicated relationship that Sub Pop exploited with great success.
[more]

front cover of In Praise of the Bicycle
In Praise of the Bicycle
Marc Augé
Reaktion Books, 2019
Witness the French anthropologist as we have never seen him before. Marc Augé coined the term “non-place” to describe the ubiquitous airports, hotels, and motorways filled with anonymous individuals. In this new book, he casts his anthropologist’s eye on a subject close to his heart: cycling.  With In Praise of the Bicycle, Augé takes us on a two-wheeled ride around our cities and on a personal journey into ourselves. We all remember the thrill of riding a bike for the first time and the joys of cycling. Here he reminds us that these memories are not just personal, but rooted in a time and a place, in a history that is shared with millions of others.

Part memoir, part manifesto, Augé’s book celebrates cycling as a way of reconnecting with the places in which we live, and, ultimately, as a necessary alternative to our disconnected world.
[more]

front cover of A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times
A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times
Traditions and Transformations
Michael Aung-Thwin
Reaktion Books, 2012
In A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times, Michael Aung-Thwin and Maitrii Aung-Thwin take us from the sacred stupas of the plains of Pagan to grand, colonial-era British mansions, revealing the storied past and rich culture of this country. The book traces the traditions and transformations of Myanmar’s communities over nearly three millennia, from the relics of its Neolithic civilization to the splendors of its pre-colonial kingdoms, its encounters with British colonialism and the struggles for the republic that followed the end of World War II.
 
The authors also consider the complexities of present-day life in Myanmar and examine the key political events and debates of the last twenty-five years that have brought the world’s attention to the country. By exploring current developments within the broader patterns of Myanmar's history, culture and society, they provide a nuanced perspective on the issues and questions surrounding Myanmar’s future.
 
This updated edition considers the changes that have taken place since the elections of 2010, the reforms that the civilian government introduced, and the ramifications of the country's new international status. It also assesses the implications of the 2012 by-elections, the ensuing political dynamics among various stakeholders, and the continuing socio-economic challenges facing Myanmar in the twenty-first century.
 
The most comprehensive history of Myanmar ever published in the English language, this book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Southeast Asian history and will surprise, challenge, and inform in equal measure.
[more]

front cover of Designing Modern Germany
Designing Modern Germany
Jeremy Aynsley
Reaktion Books, 2009
German design and architecture reflects the country’s rich and fraught political history in its structure and aesthetic philosophy. Jeremy Aynsley now offers an in-depth study of this relationship between German history and design since 1870 and the complex principles underlying it.

Designing Modern Germany reveals how German attitudes toward national identity, modernity and technology are crucial to understanding German design. Aynsley traces the historical development of German design, beginning in the 1870s with the first dedicated Arts and Crafts schools and stretching through to the famous institutions of the Bauhaus and the Ulm Hochschule für Gestaltung. He analyses the works of leading figures such as Peter Behrens and Hannes Meyer, through to Ingo Maurer and Jil Sander, and many others in design specialties including graphics, industrial and furniture design, fashion and architecture. He also offers the first consideration of the contrasting design traditions of East and West Germany between 1949 and 1989. Whether examining the pre-First World War department store, the National Socialist fashion system or East Germany’s official design culture, Designing Modern Germany reveals that German design significantly affected citizens’ daily lives.

An essential read for designers and scholars of German design and history, Designing Modern Germany is a key text for understanding Germany’s major contribution to twentieth-century design.
 
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter