World Art History

A follow-up to her popular Encyclopedia of the Exquisite, Jenkins' new book offers a string of historical anecdotes structured around the hours of the day, celebrating the unusual, fantastic, and beautiful ways people have spent time throughout the ages.

Military commanders turn tactics into strategic victory by means of "operational art", the knowledge and creative imagination commanders and staff employ in designing, synchronizing, and conducting battles and major operations to achieve strategic goals. He shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, US war colleges educated and trained commanders during the interwar years specifically for the operational art they employed in World War II.

When the first Martian cylinder crash lands in England, Ogilvy the astronomer barely survives the deadly heat ray from the attack by aliens. He then accidentally stumbles upon the truth about the Red Weed and sends vital evidence to scientists in France on board HMS Thunder Child, but the ship is attacked by a Martian tripod.

Tras el rotundo éxito de William Ospina con Pa' que se acabe la vaina, Enrique Serrano escribe aquí su propia visión del pasado y el futuro del país desde una acera ideológica distinta y con un resultado igualmente notable.

"Diamond Is Fragile was one of my favorite books from my late grandfather's library. Much to my surprise (and dismay) it was only published once in the former Soviet Union approximately 50 years ago and (to the best of my knowledge) has never been published abroad. I was inspired to translate Diamond Is Fragile into English by my father-in-law - Thom Seymour, Sr. - due to his passion for geology and history (topics amply covered in the book). I hope that other English-speaking readers who are interested in these disciplines will enjoy it as well." (Maria K., translator)

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.

When it comes to how societies commemorate their own distant dreams and catastrophes, we often think of books, archives, or memorials carved from stone. But in Time's Echo, Jeremy Eichler makes a revelatory case for the power of music as culture's memory, an art form uniquely capable of carrying forward meaning from the past. Eichler shows how four towering composers - Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich - lived through the era of the Second World War and the Holocaust and later transformed their experiences into deeply moving works of music.

It’s harder than it seems – after all, it’s only human to thirst after the juicy updates, jaw-dropping stories, and idle chatter that we typically collect over drinks with friends. No one knows this better than journalist Kelsey McKinney, whose Normal Gossip podcast has accrued a listenership of millions. In YOU DIDN'T HEAR THIS FROM ME, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling.

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.

Operation Chastise was one of the most extraordinary episodes of the Second World War, yet it has also become one of the most misunderstood. Max Hastings tells the gripping story of the Dambusters raid, from the invention of the bouncing bomb to the moonlit cockpits of young pilots flying at treetop height through lethal enemy fire. But Hastings also challenges what we think we know about the Dambusters, bringing to light the difficult truths that have often been left out of the legend.

Intimate and richly detailed, The Beauty of Living begins with E. E. Cummings's Cambridge upbringing and his relationship with his socially progressive but domestically domineering father. It follows Cummings through his undergraduate experience at Harvard, where he fell into a circle of aspiring writers including John Dos Passos, who became a lifelong friend. Steeped in classical paganism and literary Decadence, Cummings and his friends rode the explosion of Cubism, Futurism, Imagism, and other "modern" movements in the arts.

Who made the first snowman? Who first came up with the idea of placing snowballs on top of each other, and who decided they would use a carrot for a nose? Most puzzling of all: How can this mystery ever be solved, with all the evidence long since melted? The snowman appears everywhere on practically everything - from knickknacks to greeting cards to seasonal sweaters we plan to return.

Bob Dylan is many things to many people. Each Bob Dylan joins a collective cast that has made up his persona for more than 50 years. No version of Dylan turns out uncomplicated, but the postmillennial manifestation seems peculiarly contrary - a tireless and enterprising antiquarian; a creator of singular texts and sounds through promiscuous poaching; an artist of innovation and uncanny renewal. The collection of essays does justice to this difficult Bob Dylan by examining his method and effects through a disparate set of viewpoints.

July 3, 1981, was a pivotal night for the future of America's newest art form: hip hop. In New York's Harlem World Club, the Fantastic Romantic Five and the Cold Crush Brothers competed, with an unprecedented $1,000 on the line in a highly anticipated rap battle. The show drew hundreds of fans to settle a question that still dominates hip hop circles: Who's the best? In Harlem World, journalist Jonathan Mael chronicles this fateful night of hip hop rivalry and shares a new look at how Harlem helped ignite a musical revolution.

During the Age of Discovery a little-known public servant in the Venetian government, Giovambattista Ramusio, anonymously assembled and edited three volumes—over two million words—that revealed our world as never before. It was, to use a current expression, the biggest Wikileak of the Renaissance. In an enthralling narrative, Andrea di Robilant brings to vivid life the man who used all his political skill, along with the help of conniving diplomats and spies, to ferret out a remarkable collection of journals, private letters and classified government reports.

The terror of the coming of the Martians is all but a distant memory, a bad dream that has faded with time. All George wants is a quiet suburban life – but at breakfast one morning his newspaper reports the shocking discovery of a Martian cylinder, found intact and unopened, and carefully transported to London. Could it be from the first alien invasion and are Martians still alive inside after more than ten years?

A terrifically engaging and original biography about one of England’s greatest novelists and the glamorous, eccentric, debauched and ultimately tragic family that provided him with the most significant friendships of his life and inspired his masterpiece, Brideshead Revisited.

The Art of War has been applied to many fields outside of the military. Many business books have applied the lessons taken from the book to office politics and corporate business strategy. Many Japanese companies make the book required reading for their key executives. The book is also popular among Western business circles citing its utilitarian value regarding management practices. Many entrepreneurs and corporate executives have turned to it for inspiration and advice on how to succeed in competitive business situations.

After the Berlin Wall fell, a group of Christian colleges in the US seized the opportunity to begin strategic faculty and student exchanges with universities inside the Soviet Union. They could not have foreseen the doors that would open next. During a 1990 visit to Russia, John Bernbaum and his colleagues received a surprising invitation from a Russian government official: come help build a faith-based university in Moscow. Thus, after 70 years of fierce religious persecution under communism, the Russian-American Christian University (RACU) was born.

In Detestable and Wicked Arts, Paul B. Moyer places early New England's battle against black magic in a transatlantic perspective. Moyer provides an accessible and comprehensive examination of witch prosecutions in the Puritan colonies that discusses how their English inhabitants understood the crime of witchcraft, why some people ran a greater risk of being accused of occult misdeeds, and how gender intersected with witch-hunting.