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.

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.