World Art History

While the Civil War raged in America, another, very different revolution was beginning to take shape across the Atlantic, in the studios of Paris. The artists who would make Impressionism the most popular art form in history were showing their first paintings amid scorn and derision from the French artistic establishment. Indeed, no artistic movement has ever been, at its inception, quite so controversial.

There have been few times in modern music history that an instant shift in how we listen to - and view - music has occurred. However, the launch of MTV on August 1, 1981, was certainly one such occurrence. Instantly, music fans were now “listening with their eyes” rather than relying solely on their ears.

From a distinctive, inimitable voice, a wickedly funny and fascinating romp through the strange and often contradictory history of Western parenting.

As a humble barman at the M25 Orbital raves, Kirk Field witnessed the moment acid house exploded. Inspired by media lies to start writing the truth about what he saw unfolding, Kirk became a 'raving' reporter for the clubbers' bible Mixmag, covering the historic parties from the inside and sending sweat-soaked dispatches from distant dancefloors as the scene expanded across Europe and beyond. With a cast of characters, Kirk's whirlwind account of the golden age of clubbing tells the story of what really happened in the 'naughty '90s'.

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.

The Art of Ash by Derek Spear is an exploration of the fascinating world of cigar culture and history. Derek takes viewers on a captivating journey that captures the essence of cigars in all their glory. In this book, the cigar is more than a pastime; it's an enduring legacy, a true work of art, and a heartfelt tribute to the precious moments we savor in life. Grab yourself a comfortable chair, your favorite cigar, and embark on a leisurely journey through a meticulously crafted coffee table book, adapted for audio.

The heroic story of Pussy Riot, who resurrected the power of truth in a society built on lies. On February 21, 2012, five young women entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. In neon-colored dresses, tights, and balaclavas, they performed a “punk prayer” beseeching the “Mother of God” to “get rid of Putin.” They were quickly shut down by security, and in the weeks and months that followed, three of the women were arrested and tried, and two were sentenced to a remote prison colony. But the incident captured international headlines, and footage of it went viral.

Bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe, weaving stories of our relationship with cloth and asking how and why people through the ages have made it, worn it, invented it and made symbols out of it. And sometimes why they have fought for it. She beats the inner bark of trees into cloth in Papua New Guinea, fails to handspin cotton in Guatemala, visits tweed weavers at their homes in Harris, and has lessons in patchwork-making in Gee's Bend, Alabama—where in the 1930s, deprived of almost everything they owned, a community of women turned quilting into an art form.

Since 2001, the US Department of State has been sending hip hop artists abroad to perform and teach as goodwill ambassadors. There are good reasons for this: Hip hop is known and loved across the globe, acknowledged and appreciated as a product of American culture. Hip hop has from its beginning been a means of creating community through artistic collaboration, fostering what hip hop artists call building.

Art looting is commonly recognized as a central feature of Nazi expropriation. After the war, the famed Monuments Men (and women) recovered several hundred thousand pieces from the Germans' makeshift repositories. Well-publicized restitution cases, such as that of Gustav Klimt's luminous painting featured in the film Woman in Gold, illustrate the legacy of Nazi looting in the art world today. But what happened to looted art that was never returned to its rightful owners?

On August 21, 1911, the unfathomable happened - Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa vanished from the Louvre. More than 24 hours passed before museum officials realized she was gone. The prime suspects were as shocking as the crime: Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, young provocateurs of a new art. As French detectives using the latest methods of criminology, including fingerprinting, tried to trace the thieves, a burgeoning international media hyped news of the heist.

Dorothy L. Sayers is now famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, but she was equally well known during her life for an essay asking “Are Women Human?” Women’s rights were expanding rapidly during Sayers’s lifetime; she and her friends were some of the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Yet, as historian Mo Moulton reveals, it was clear from the many professional and personal obstacles they faced that society was not ready to concede that women were indeed fully human.

In the early 20th century, World War I was the most devastating event humanity had yet experienced. New machines of war left tens of millions killed or wounded in the most grotesque of ways. The Great War remade the world's map, created new global powers, and brought forth some of the biggest problems still facing us today. But it also birthed a new art form: the horror film, made from the fears of a generation ruined by war. From Nosferatu to Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man, the touchstones of horror can all trace their roots to the bloodshed of the First World War.

It’s Victorian London. China Town A crisis is about to explode. Ghosts are marauding the merchants. Merchants are being murdered in ghastly ways. But only certain items are being stolen. Why? And what need to ghosts have of physical Things? None of it makes sense. Detective Dee is asked to help solve this growing Puzzle and trend of violence. But how do you stop marauders who Are not ghosts, and yet can materialize And vanish like one?

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the Late Spring and Autumn Period (roughly fifth century BC). The work, which is attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu , is composed of 13 chapters. Each chapter is devoted to an aspect of warfare and how it applies to military strategy and tactics. For almost 1,500 years The Art of War has been the lead text in an anthology that would be formalised as the Seven Military Classics by Emperor Shenzong of Song in 1080.

"Know thyself" - this fundamental imperative appeared for the first time in ancient Greece. For the Greeks, self-knowledge and identity were the basics of their civilization and their sources were to be found in where one was born and into which social group. These determined who you were and what your duties were. In this book the independent scholar Ingrid Rossellini surveys the major ideas that, from Greek and Roman antiquity through the Christian medieval era up to the dawn of modernity in the Renaissance, have guided the Western project of self-knowledge.

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.

With war clouds gathering and harassment increasing, the stars of Continental opera, many of whom are Jewish, face dark futures under the boot heel of the Nazis. What can two middle-aged British spinsters do about such matters? They can form a secret cabal right under Hitler’s nose and get to work saving lives. The sisters conspire to bring together worldwide opera aficionados and insiders in an international operation to rescue Jews in the opera from the horrific fate that everyone intuits is coming.

Here is Hemingway: the adventurer, the reporter, the man! More intimately than all his fiction, Hemingway the reporter reveals Hemingway the man, driving an ambulance through a bullet-barrage or leading guerrilla forces into Paris, always in the thick of the action. Here are his most sensational dispatches, the behind-the-scenes stories that became For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, and The Sun Also Rises.

Japanese animation—or anime—holds a special place in the hearts of countless fans around the globe. Since the early days of Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy to Makoto Shinkai’s astounding success with Your Name, anime has left an undeniable impact on our culture. Anime Impact explores the impression the medium has left on various fans with detailed discussions on television shows and movies from the 1960s all the way to the present.