World Art History

Do you watch movies with your eyes open? You buy your tickets and concessions, and you walk into the theater. Celluloid images flash at 24 frames per second, and the hypnotic sequence of moving pictures coaxes you to suspend disbelief and be entertained by the implausible. Unfortunately, many often suspend their beliefs as well, succumbing to subtle lessons in how to behave, think, and even perceive reality.

Although many denied it, a giant ocean liner was dying. The superstitious nodded their heads, knowing her fate had already been sealed. The freezing Atlantic crept up to the forecastle head as the massive vessel, with all her lights aglow, slowly, almost imperceptibly, sank at the bow.

In the course of 15 momentous years, the Spanish- and the Portuguese-American empires that had endured for three centuries came to an end in the mid-1820s. How did this come about? Not all Latin Americans desired such a change, and the independence wars were civil wars, often cruel and always violent. What social and economic groups lined up on one side or the other? Were there variations from place to place, region to region? Did men and women differ in their experiences of war?

A Thousand Cuts is a candid exploration of one of America's strangest and most quickly vanishing subcultures. It is about the death of physical film in the digital era and about a paranoid, secretive, eccentric, and sometimes obsessive group of film-mad collectors who made movies and their projection a private religion in the time before DVDs and Blu-rays.

In this book in praise of wait times, award-winning author Jason Farman passionately argues that the delay between call and answer has always been an important part of the message. Traveling backward from our current era of Twitter and texts, Farman describes how societies have worked to eliminate waiting in communication and how they have interpreted those times' meanings. And in a rebuttal to the demand for instant communication, Farman makes a powerful case for why good things can come to those who wait.

DOYLE'S WORLD is no ordinary biography about one of the world's most influential writers. It is instead a work that deciphers in particular the cryptic origins and actual scientific methods used by fiction's most famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes—and a work that provides a detailed look into the psyche and working life of Holmes’ creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The book follows Doyle’s entire illustrious literary career, with emphasis on the Sherlock Holmes mysteries as they evolved from the late 1880s to the early 1900s.

Produced during the height of the post-World War II film noir movement, Blood on the Moon is a classic Western immersed in the film noir netherworld of double crosses, government corruption, shabby barrooms, gun-toting goons, and romantic betrayals. With this volume, biographer and noir expert Alan K. Rode brings the film to life for a new generation of listeners and film lovers.

The story goes that under the influence of blues and rock and roll, Britain suddenly started making spectacularly great music in the 1960s like some clever, quick-learning cultural satellite of America. But Britain’s mid-20th-century pop music explosion didn’t happen from a standing start. The reasons, both dazzling and multifaceted, appear to lie deeper than those legendary deliveries of blues records to Liverpool’s port and the legacy of music halls.

01.Osnovy teorii iskusstva. Vidy, zhanry, rody iskusstva. 02.Pervobytnoe iskusstvo. 03.Hudozhestvennye tradicii Indii. 04.Hudozhestvennaja kul'tura Kitaja. 05.Hudozhestvennaja kul'tura Drevnego Egipta. 06.Hudozhestvennaja kul'tura Drevnej Grecii. Jetapy arhaiki i klassiki. 07.Jellinizm. 08.Hudozhestvennaja kul'tura Drevnego Rima. 09.Iskusstvo Vizantii IV - XV vv. 10.Iskusstvo Zapadnoj Evropy v Srednie veka. Romanskij stil' i gotika.

A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR BOOKLISTS' EDITOR'S CHOICE ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “At once a film book, a history book, and a civil rights book.… Without a doubt, not only the very best film book [but] also one of the best books of the year in any genre. An...

No one in history has provoked more controversy than Napoleon Bonaparte. Was he an enlightened ruler or brutal tyrant? Was he an insatiable warmonger or a defender of France against the aggression of the other great powers? Was he kind or cruel, farsighted or blinkered, a sophisticate or a philistine, a builder or a destroyer? One thing is certain, if the art of leadership is about getting what one wants, then Napoleon was among history's greatest masters.

The reason you never heard these histories is so dark that few have dared to speak about it, until now. Completely new and meticulously researched, Tai Chi, Baguazhang and the Golden Elixir erases 120 years of confusion and error to reveal the specific theatrical and religious origins of Chinese internal martial arts.

Dangerous Melodies vividly evokes a time when classical music stood at the center of American life, occupying a prominent place in the nation’s culture and politics. The work of renowned conductors, instrumentalists, and singers - and the activities of orchestras and opera companies - were intertwined with momentous international events: two world wars, the rise of fascism, and the Cold War.

At the core of this ancient strategy manual is the understanding that conflict is an inescapable part of human life. Since, as Sun Tzu teaches, aggression and response in kind can lead only to destruction, we must learn to work with conflict in a more profound and effective way. Crucial to this strategic vision is knowledge - especially self-knowledge - and a view of the whole that seeks to bring conflicting views into a larger perspective.

From the author of American Eden—finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and more—comes a sweeping, richly researched biography of Frederic Church, the great 19th-century American artist whose stunning paintings of remote lands and seas thrilled American audiences and put...

The result of of more than a decade of meticulous research, Before the Birds Sang Words is a scholarly, fascinating and playful deep dive into the creation of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, the timeless Audio-Animatronic musical revue that’s been delighting Disneyland audiences for over sixty years. Detailing not only the genesis and evolution of the revolutionary attraction, this is a story that also explores the contributing influences and passions of the man who spearheaded it—in turn becoming one of Walt Disney’s most personal projects.

Since its launch in late 1992, the BBC’s ‘Later….with Jools Holland’ has been widely regarded as the world’s foremost music programme, showcasing a huge variety of bands, singers and musicians in a live performance setting. Now in its 50th series ‘Later…’ has broadcasted over 300 episodes. The book will be a definitive, celebratory oral history of the show—and the last three decades of music more generally—featuring interviews with many of those who have performed over its quarter century.

A dazzling journey into the hidden lives of synanthropes, the wild animals who've found ingenious ways to survive and thrive in human communities—from award-winning writer and epidemiologist Dan Werb Synanthropes have always been an immutable part of the tapestry of our lives. They are the...

From the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lords of Finance, a magnificent and timely reckoning with the first truly global financial calamity and the famous banking family at the center of the whirlwind Over the course of the 1850s and 1860s, during the first era of globalization, the...

From the critically acclaimed author of Temperament, a narrative account of the most defining moments in musical history—classical and jazz—all of which forever altered Western culture "A fascinating journey that begins with the origins of musical notation and travels through the...