UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. I, Abridged Edition


Book Description

"This volume covers the period from the end of the Neolithic era to the beginning of the seventh century of our era. This lengthy period includes the civilization of Ancient Egypt, the history of Nubia, Ethiopia, North Africa and the Sahara, as well as of the other regions of the continent and its islands."--Publisher's description




Creating "Greater Malaysia"


Book Description

Malaysia came into existence on 9/16/63 as a federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah (North Borneo), and Sarawak; in 1965 Singapore withdrew from the federation. Offers an in-depth and detailed analysis of the political processes that led to formation of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. It argues that the Malaysia that came into being following the amalgamation of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo was a political creation whose only rationale was that it served a convergence of political and economic expediency for the departing colonial power, the Malayan leadership and the ruling party of self-governing Singapore. 'Greater Malaysia' was thus an artificial political entity, the outcome of a concatenation of interests and motives of a number of political actors in London and Southeast Asia from the 1950s to the early 1960s. This led to a number of unresolved compromises between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and did not obviate the possibility of future difficulties, and the seeds of dissension sown by the disagreements between the two governments were to sprout into major crises during Singapore's brief history in the Federation of Malaysia.




When I Was a Photographer


Book Description

The first complete English translation of Nadar's intelligent and witty memoir, a series of vignettes that capture his experiences in the early days of photography. Celebrated nineteenth-century photographer—and writer, actor, caricaturist, inventor, and balloonist—Félix Nadar published this memoir of his photographic life in 1900 at the age of eighty. Composed as a series of vignettes (we might view them as a series of “written photographs”), this intelligent and witty book offers stories of Nadar's experiences in the early years of photography, memorable character sketches, and meditations on history. It is a classic work, cited by writers from Walter Benjamin to Rosalind Krauss. This is its first and only complete English translation. In When I Was a Photographer (Quand j'étais photographe), Nadar tells us about his descent into the sewers and catacombs of Paris, where he experimented with the use of artificial lighting, and his ascent into the skies over Paris in a hot air balloon, from which he took the first aerial photographs. He recounts his “postal photography” during the 1870-1871 Siege of Paris—an amazing scheme involving micrographic images and carrier pigeons. He describes technical innovations and important figures in photography, and offers a thoughtful consideration of society and culture; but he also writes entertainingly about such matters as Balzac's terror of being photographed, the impact of a photograph on a celebrated murder case, and the difference between male and female clients. Nadar's memoir captures, as surely as his photographs, traces of a vanished era.




The Orientalists


Book Description

At the end of the nineteenth century, numerous painters succumbed to the charms of the Orient. Travel to distant lands was easier, and artists brought back voluptuous images filled with sun and colour. This title studies almost 150 painters, from Delacroix to Ziem. It features many lesser known masters and is suitable for collectors.




Bohemian Versus Bourgeois


Book Description




Rethinking Boucher


Book Description

"Unequivocally a modern, Francois Boucher (1703-70) defined the French artistic avant-garde throughout his career. Yet the triumph of modernist aesthetics - with its focus on the self-critical, the autonomous, and the intellectually challenging - has long discouraged art historians and other viewers from taking Boucher's playful and alluring works seriously. Rethinking Boucher revisits the cultural meanings and reception of his diverse oeuvre, inviting us to revise the interpretive cliches by which we have sought to tame this artist and his epoch."--BOOK JACKET.




Germain Boffrand


Book Description

This title was first published in 2003. Germain Boffrand was one of the great French architects of the early eighteenth century. His work encompassed not only the design of town and country houses for the wealthy but also mines, bridges and hospitals. His Livre d’Architecture is one of the most original books on architecture ever written in France. Taking the Art of Poetry by the Latin poet Horace as its starting point, it developed an aesthetic of architecture focused on character, style and the emotional impact of a building that influenced Blondel, Le Camus de Mezieres and Soane, and is still central to contemporary debate about the nature and meaning of architecture. Translated for the first time by David Britt, Boffrand’s text is here accompanied by an extensive introduction and notes by Caroline van Eck who situates Boffrand within the main issues of eighteenth-century architectural aesthetics. Beautifully illustrated, including all the pictures chosen by Boffrand for his original publication, this book is an invaluable tool for teaching the history of architectural theory and an essential work for any architectural library. Germain Boffrand is published with the assistance of the Getty Foundation.




Gentrification of the City


Book Description

This book was first published in 1986.




Inventing the Performing Arts


Book Description

Indonesia, with its mix of ethnic cultures, cosmopolitan ethos, and strong national ideology, offers a useful lens for examining the intertwining of tradition and modernity in globalized Asia. In Inventing the Performing Arts, Matthew Isaac Cohen explores the profound change in diverse arts practices from the nineteenth century until 1949. He demonstrates that modern modes of transportation and communication not only brought the Dutch colony of Indonesia into the world economy, but also stimulated the emergence of new art forms and modern attitudes to art, disembedded and remoored traditions, and hybridized foreign and local. In the nineteenth century, access to novel forms of entertainment, such as the circus, and newspapers, which offered a new language of representation and criticism, wrought fundamental changes in theatrical, musical, and choreographic practices. Musical drama disseminated print literature to largely illiterate audiences starting in the 1870s, and spoken drama in the 1920s became a vehicle for exploring social issues. Twentieth-century institutions—including night fairs, the recording industry, schools, itinerant theatre, churches, cabarets, round-the-world cruises, and amusement parks—generated new ways of making, consuming, and comprehending the performing arts. Concerned over the loss of tradition and "Eastern" values, elites codified folk arts, established cultural preservation associations, and experimented in modern stagings of ancient stories. Urban nationalists excavated the past and amalgamated ethnic cultures in dramatic productions that imagined the Indonesian nation. The Japanese occupation (1942–1945) was brief but significant in cultural impact: plays, songs, and dances promoting anti-imperialism, Asian values, and war-time austerity measures were created by Indonesian intellectuals and artists in collaboration with Japanese and Korean civilian and military personnel. Artists were registered, playscripts censored, training programs developed, and a Cultural Center established. Based on more than two decades of archival study in Indonesia, Europe, and the United States, this richly detailed, meticulously researched book demonstrates that traditional and modern artistic forms were created and conceived, that is "invented," in tandem. Intended as a general historical introduction to the performing arts in Indonesia, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Indonesian performance, Asian traditions and modernities, global arts and culture, and local heritage.