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• Textbooks | Humanities | Art History
• Art & Art Instruction

Interdisciplinary in approach and topical in focus, the sixth edition of The Humanistic Tradition continues to bring to life humankind's creative legacy. With more than 800 illustrations and some 150 literary sources in accessible translations, this widely acclaimed humanities survey takes a global perspective that is at once selective and engaging, and helps students better understand the relationship between world cultures. Available in multiple formats, The Humanistic Tradition examines the political, economic, and social contexts out of which history's most memorable achievements emerged.

In this book, the distinguished writer Edward Luttwak presents the grand strategy of the eastern Roman empire we know as Byzantine, which lasted more than twice as long as the more familiar western Roman empire, eight hundred years by the shortest definition. This extraordinary endurance is all the more remarkable because the Byzantine empire was favored neither by geography nor by military preponderance. Yet it was the western empire that dissolved during the fifth century. The Byzantine empire so greatly outlasted its western counterpart because its rulers were able to adapt strategically to diminished circumstances, by devising new ways of coping with successive enemies. It relied less on military strength and more on persuasion—to recruit allies, dissuade threatening neighbors, and manipulate potential enemies into attacking one another instead. Even when the Byzantines fought—which they often did with great skill—they were less inclined to destroy their enemies than to contain them, for they were aware that today’s enemies could be tomorrow’s allies. Born in the fifth century when the formidable threat of Attila’s Huns were deflected with a minimum of force, Byzantine strategy continued to be refined over the centuries, incidentally leaving for us several fascinating guidebooks to statecraft and war.

The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is a broad, interpretive account of Byzantine strategy, intelligence, and diplomacy over the course of eight centuries that will appeal to scholars, classicists, military history buffs, and professional soldiers.

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Vital Point Strikes is a guide to pressure point striking for the average martial artist. Sang H. Kim demystifies the lore of vital point striking and shows you realistic applications of vital point strikes for self-defense and combat sports. For those new to the concept of vital points, he begins by examining the Eastern theory of acupoints, meridians and ki (qi) and the Western scientific concepts of the nervous and circulatory systems, pain threshold and pain tolerance, and the relationship between pain and fear. This synthesis of accepted Eastern and Western theories helps the reader understand what makes vital point striking work and why it can be not only useful in fighting, but deadly. Based on this introduction, you ll learn about 202 vital points for use in fighting including the name, point number, location, involved nerves and blood vessels, applicable techniques, sample applications, and potential results for each point. The points are illustrated in detail on an anatomically correct human model, with English, Chinese, and Korean names as well as point numbers for easy reference. In addition to identifying the vital points, Sang H. Kim gives you detailed information about the type of techniques that work for vital point striking including a discussion of fighting zones and ranges, plexus strikes, stance and footwork, bodily weapons, striking directions and angles and dozens of applications for common empty hand, grappling, groundfighting, knife and gun attacks. Based on over thirty years experience in the martial arts and in-depth research, Sang H. Kim has created one of the most complete books available on the art and science of vital point striking.

Arts & Photography | Textbooks
Textooks | Humanties | Art Instruction

Analyze, Understand, Appreciate

Living with Art, 9th edition, provides the tools to help students think critically about the visual arts. Using a wealth of examples, the first half of the text examines the nature, vocabulary, and elements of art, offering a foundation for students to learn to analyze art effectively. The latter half sets out a brief but comprehensive history of art, leading students to understand art within the context of its time and place of origin. High quality images from a wide range of periods and cultures bring the art to life, and topical essays throughout the text foster critical thinking skills.

Taken together, all of these elements help students to better appreciate art as a reflection of the human experience and to realize that living with art is living with ourselves.

• Arts & Photography | History & Criticism
• Arts & Photography | Reference
• Arts & Photography | Schools, Periods & Styles

The Art Book  is an alphabetical reference guide to 500 of the world's greatest painters and sculptors.

Winner of the Illustrated Book of the Year award (1994).

The Art Book  has become a publishing phenomenon and a well-known event in the art book world. Reduced in size, making it light and highly portable, this new mini edition presents the same easy-to-use alphabetical guide to 500 of the world's greatest painters and sculptors. 500 color illustrations.

Long considered the survey of modern art, this engrossing and liberally illustrated text traces the development of trends and influences in painting, sculpture, photography and architecture from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Retaining its comprehensive nature and chronological approach, it now comes thoroughly reworked by Elizabeth Mansfield, an experienced art historian and writer, with refreshing new analyses, a considerably expanded picture program, and a more absorbing and unified narrative.

The word postmodernism, for better or worse, has entered everyday discourse. Applied everywhere, it as acquired an authority to describe a variety of concerns—culture, critiques of culture, architecture, video, music, the penchant for economic forecasts and marketing research, new therapies, museum installations and film festivals, religious revivals and cults—and seems to offer an assurance that it identifies something. But what?
In his most broadly engaging work, Fredric Jameson argues that postmodernism is the cultural response to the latest systemic change in world capitalism. He seeks here to crystallize a definition of this term that has taken on so many meanings it has virtually lost all historical significance. Departing from his now classic essay, "Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" (included here), he presents a wide-ranging discussion of the cultural landscape—both "high" and "low"—of postmodernity. Subsequent chapters evaluate the political fortunes of the new term and survey postmodern developments in a range of different fields, from market ideology to architecture, from painting and installment art to contemporary "punk" film, from video art and high literature to deconstruction.
Finally, Jameson reevaluates the concept of postmodernism in light of postmodern critiques of totalization and historical narratives, from the notion of "decadence" to the dynamics of small groups, from religious fundamentalism to high-tech science fiction, while touching on the nature of contemporary cultural critique and the possibilities of "cultural mapping" in the present "multinational" world system. This insightful and provocative book will be fundamentally important to all future discussions of postmodernism.

For courses in the History of Art.

 

Rewritten and reorganized, this new edition weaves together the most recent scholarship, the most current thinking in art history, and the most innovative online supplements, including digital art library. Experience the new Janson and re-experience the history of art.

 

Long established as the classic and seminal introduction to art of the Western world, the Eighth Edition of Janson's History of Art is groundbreaking. When Harry Abrams first published the History of Art in 1962, John F. Kennedy occupied the White House, and Andy Warhol was an emerging artist.  Janson offered his readers a strong focus on Western art, an important consideration of technique and style, and a clear point of view. The History of Art, said Janson, was not just a stringing together of historically significant objects, but the writing of a story about their interconnections, a history of styles and of stylistic change. Janson’s text focused on the visual and technical characteristics of the objects he discussed, often in extraordinarily eloquent language. Janson’s History of Art helped to establish the canon of art history for many generations of scholars.

 

The new Eighth Edition, although revised to remain current with new discoveries and scholarship, continues to follow Janson’s lead in important ways: It is limited to the Western tradition, with a chapter on Islamic art and its relationship to Western art. It keeps the focus of the discussion on the object, its manufacture, and its visual character. It considers the contribution of the artist as an important part of the analysis. This edition maintains an organization along the lines established by Janson, with separate chapters on the Northern European Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance, the High Renaissance, and Baroque art, with stylistic divisions for key periods of the modern era. Also embedded in this edition is the narr...

This highly-anticipated publication presents the final comprehensive design for Sections 1 and 2 of the High Line, by Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. This full-color book includes design renderings, maps, and photographs depicting the High Line from its construction in the 1930s through its current re-construction into New York City's most-anticipated new public space.

About Friends of the High Line
Friends of the High Line is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and reuse of the High Line, a 1.5-mile-long historic elevated rail structure on the West Side of Manhattan. Visit www.thehighline.org for more information.

A landmark in art history and the most anticipated art publishing event of the new millennium.
In this groundbreaking and original work of scholarship, four of the most influential and provocative art historians of our time have come together to provide a comprehensive history of art in the twentieth century, an age when artists in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere sought to overturn the traditions of the past and expectations of the present in order to invent new practices and forms.

Adopting a unique year-by-year approach, Foster, Krauss, Bois, and Buchloh present more than 100 short essays, each focusing on a crucial event—the creation of a seminal work, the publication of an artistic manifesto, the opening of a major exhibition—to tell the story of the dazzling diversity of practice and interpretation that characterizes the art of the period. All the turning points and breakthroughs of modernism and postmodernism are explored in depth, as are the frequent and sustained antimodernist reactions that proposed alternative visions of art and the world. Illustrating the authors' texts are more than 600 of the most important works of the century, many reproduced in full color.

The book's flexible structure and extensive cross-referencing allow readers to follow any one of the many narratives that unfold, whether that be the history of a medium such as photography or painting, the development of art in a particular country, the influence of a movement such as surrealism or feminism, or the emergence of a stylistic or conceptual category like abstraction or minimalism. Boxes give further background information on the important figures and issues.

In their insightful introductions, the four authors explain the different methods of art history at work in the book, providing the reader with the conceptual tools for further study. Two roundtable discussions —one at midcentury, the other at the close of the book—consider the questions raised ...

GARDNER'S ART THROUGH THE AGES, VOLUME II, 14TH EDITION provides you with a comprehensive, beautifully-illustrated tour of the world's great artistic traditions! Easy to read and understand, the fourteenth edition of the most widely-read art history book in the English language continues to evolve, providing a rich cultural backdrop for each of the covered periods and geographical locations, and incorporating new artists and art forms -- all reproduced according to the highest standards of clarity and color fidelity. A complete online environment, including all images and an eBook, is also available. The unique Scale feature will help you better visualize the actual size of the artworks shown in the book. A new timeline within each chapter, along with "The Big Picture" overviews at the end of every chapter, will help you review for exams.

Ancient Egyptian art has an enduring fascination. From the geometrical precision of the great pyramids at Giza to the golden treasures found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, the products of the Egyptian civilization attract and intrigue. Far from being art work in the modern sense, they represent the concrete expression of a profound belief in the primacy of the Egyptian way of life and the continuation of the spirit in the afterlife. This comprehensive book traces Egyptian art from its origins in prehistoric times through the supreme achievements of the pharaohs to the Roman period. Placing the works of art in their historical, geographical and spiritual context, Jaromir Malek seeks to create a more complete and realistic view of this fascinating culture. Beyond the period of ancient Egyptian art itself, Malek traces the history of Egyptology and looks at the influence of Egypt on modern art, a topic which has so far been almost completely ignored. Through its wealth of illustrations, this book reveals the immense variety and superb quality of the objects and buildings that have survived from ancient Egypt.

"America's nerviest journalist" (Newsweek) trains his satirical eye on Modern Art in this "masterpiece" (The Washington Post)

Wolfe's style has never been more dazzling, his wit never more keen. He addresses the scope of Modern Art, from its founding days as Abstract Expressionism through its transformations to Pop, Op, Minimal, and Conceptual. This is Tom Wolfe "at his most clever, amusing, and irreverent" (San Francisco Chronicle).

Tom Wolfe is the author of a dozen books, among them such contemporary classics as The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Right Stuff, and I Am Charlotte Simmons. He lives in New York City.

In 1975, Tom Wolfe wrote a book skewering the contemporary art world. Here, in this re-issued edition, the satirical brilliance of that work is restored. With biting wit, Wolfe merrily lampooned all that he saw pervading the art world—the pretension, lofty theorizing, social climbing, and soaring wealth, which he considered detriments to the society and the industry of art. The social criticism in The Painted Word still resonates today.

"If you have ever stared uncomprehendingly at an abstract painting that admired critics have said you ought to dig, take heart. Tom Wolfe . . . is on your side. The Painted Word may enrage you. It may confirm your darkest suspicions about Modern Art. In any case, it will amuse you."—New York Sunday News

"Tom Wolfe is a journalist who always manages to combine an encyclopedic store of inside knowledge with the obstinate detachment of a visitor from Mars, not to mention a brilliant style and incisive wit."—San Francsico Chronicle

"The Painted Word may well be Tom Wolfe's most successful piece of social criticism to date."—The New York Times

"The Painted Word is a masterpiece. No one in the art world . . . could fail to recognize its essential truth. I read it four times, ea...

A Theory of Feline Aesthetics

An unprecedented photographic record of cat creativity that will intrigue cat-lovers and art-lovers alike. As far as we know, no theory of feline aesthetics has yet been presented, at least not with such remarkable clarity and thorough documentation.