reaktion books united kingdom london (77 results)

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Mother's Milk or Blue Ruin, Dutch Courage or Cuckold's Comfort - the fanciful nicknames that gin has acquired only hint at its colourful story. The story begins with the aromatic juniper berry originally used by the Dutch to flavour the whisky-like genever. The drink then made its way to Britain, where cheap imitations laced with turpentine and other caustic fillers made it the drink of choice for poor eighteenth-century Londoners. Eventually replaced by the sweetened Old Tom style and then by London Dry, gin was introduced to the wider world by means of the British Empire, and during the Jazz Age became a mainstay of a new drinking culture: the cocktail. Today classic cocktails like the Gimlet and the Negroni are embraced by drinkers who enjoy a new breed of modern gins, and gin has reclaimed pride of place in the world of mixology. Gin: A Global History will attract both cocktail aficionados and lovers of food history as it chronicles gin's evolution from cheap liquor to modern alcoholic marvel. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Kuala Lumpur is the postmodern city writ large, a city that, within the short span of a decade, has been transformed from a sleepy capital into a technological marvel with a thriving, diverse and affluent cultural life. Using anecdotes, classic Malay myths and tales, and observations based on real and imaginary wanderings through the city, the author traces Kuala Lumpur's origins and charts the remarkable changes experienced by the city and its people. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Since its earliest days the private detective has been a constant presence in cinema. This book traces the history of the private-eye movie, from its emergence in a handful of influential film noirs in the 1940s, through its slow and brilliant decline in 1970s 'neo-noir' cinema, to the passing of its central figure into present-day movie mythology. The private eye is usually seen as a romantic hero, a 'lone wolf' who confronts and makes sense of a violent and chaotic modern world on behalf of the viewer. In his discussion of classic films such as The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Out of the Past, acclaimed 1970s movies like Chinatown, The Long Goodbye and Klute, and many lesser-known examples, Bran Nicol challenges these stereotypes, arguing that the job of the private eye is not about solving crimes so much as uncovering private worlds, and private lives. Although ostensibly thrillers, such films are actually preoccupied by 'domestic' issues such as work, home, and love. The private eye is revealed as a figure that investigates the concealments of others, at the expense of his own private life. The Private Eye combines a lucid introduction to an under-explored tradition in movie history with a new approach to the detective in fiction and film. Moving away from the detective as hero, it focuses instead on the dramas and places that feature in private-eye movies. For all detective and noir film buffs, it offers both a novel approach to the private eye in cinema, and a fresh reading of film noir itself. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. "Vermeer's Wager" stands at the intersection of art history and critic ism, philosophy and museology. Using a familiar and celebrated painting by Johannes Vermeer as a case study, Ivan Gaskell explores what it might mean to know and use a work of art. He argues that art history as generally practiced, while successfully asserting certain claims to knowledge, fails to take into account aspects of the unique character of works of art. Our relationship to works of art is mediated, not only through reproduction but also through displays in museums. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The European city was transformed when public lighting was introduced in the last century and "night life" was made possible for the first time. This is an investigation of the various aspects of Paris, Berlin, London and their inhabitants at night between 1840 and 1930. It deals with topical issues such as crime in the city, urban improvement and the predicament of women. By day the author sifted through countless police and church archives, city records and first-hand accounts; by night he explored the highways and byways of the three great cities. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most admired and controversial figures of the twentieth century, and he remains so today. In this book leading Gandhi scholar Douglas Allen presents a new, challenging approach to understanding Gandhi's life and the contexts within which he lived and shaped history, and how his philosophy and practices can be reformulated in ways that are most significant today. Mahatma Gandhi explores the historical and cultural significance of Gandhi's extraordinary life and analyses his continuing relevance in addressing key issues of truth, ethics, violence and non-violence, war and peace, equality and freedom, different forms of exploitation and oppression, religion and religious conflict and dialogue, and environmental crises. Douglas Allen provides an urgently needed new perspective on Gandhi, which allows us to rethink our basic values and priorities. By understanding Gandhi's life and message, he creates a new paradigm for evaluating truth, non-violence, peace and morality, and offers new criteria for assessing our modern approach to standards of living, development, evolutionary progress, happiness and meaningful human existence. Mahatma Gandhi will appeal to general readers and those interested in philosophy, religion, political science, history and peace studies. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This is the French anthropologist as we've never heard him before: Marc Auge coined the term `non-place to describe uniquitous, global airports, hotels and motorways filled with anonymous individuals. In this new book, he casts his anthropologists eye on a subject close to his heart: cycling. In In Praise of the Bicycle, Auge takes us on a personal journey of his own, on a two-wheeled ride around our cities, and on a journey into ourselves. We all remember the thrill of riding a bike for the first time and the joys of cycling. Here he reminds us that these memories are not just personal, but rooted in a time and a place, in a history that is shared with millions of others. Part memoir, part manifesto, Auge celebrates cycling as a way of reconnecting with the places in which we live, and, ultimately, as a necessary alternative to our disconnected world. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Beijing and Jakarta, Tehran and Tokyo, Istanbul and Los Angeles are among the more than 60 large cities at risk from an earthquake. And although Europe's cities are comparatively less vulnerable, over the last 300 years devastating shocks have hit Athens, Bucharest, Lisbon, Madrid, Rome and elsewhere. This book describes major earthquakes and their effects on societies around the world, as well as the ways in which cultures have mythologized earthquakes through religion, the arts and popular culture. Despite advances in science and engineering, and improved disaster preparedness, earthquakes continue to cause immense loss of life and damage. The 2010 Haiti earthquake took almost a quarter of a million lives, and no one will ever forget the catastrophic tsunami unleashed in 2011 by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the east coast of Japan - a crisis described by Japan's prime minister as the most disastrous national event since the atomic bomb strikes of 1945. Written by a highly experienced science writer, biographer and journalist, Earthquake will appeal as much to general readers of popular science and art as it will to experts in many fields. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. War has always been close to the centre of British culture, but never more so than in the period since 1850. "Warrior Nation" explores the way in which images of battle, both literary and visual, have been constructed in British fiction and popular culture since this time. The rise of war reporting has helped to shape a society fascinated by conflict, and the development of mass communications has aided in the creation of mass-produced martial heroes and the relation of epic adventures for political ends. To achieve national goals, the notion of war has been promoted as an activity of high adventure and chivalrous enterprise and as a rite of passage to manhood. Using a wide range of media, Michael Paris focuses on how war has been "sold" to boys and young men and examines the "warrior" as a masculine ideal. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. 'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.' Thus begins Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of the twentieth century's most lauded works of fiction. In Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Stephen M. Hart provides a new insight into Garcia Marquez's life and work as well as describing how the political struggles of Latin America have influenced his writing, from Love in the Time of Cholera to Memories of my Melancholy Whores. This book provides a new perspective on Garcia Marquez's use of 'creative false memory' and magical realism. There are five ingredients that are critical to Garcia Marquez's writing - magical realism, a shortened and broken portrayal of time, punchy one-liners, dark and absurd humour, and political allegory - and these elements help to explain the extraordinary allure of Garcia Marquez's work, as well as providing fascinating insight into his approach to writing. The divisions between Garcia Marquez's everyday life and his life as a writer are also explored, as is the connection in his work between family history and national history. Gabriel Garcia Marquez presents an original portrait of this renowned writer and is a must-read for fans of his work, as well as those interested in magical realism, Latin American fiction and modern literature. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Over the course of more than fifteen years, architect and critic Michael Sorkin has taken an almost daily twenty-minute walk from his apartment near Washington Square in New York's Greenwich Village to his architecture studio further downtown in Tribeca. This walk has afforded abundant opportunities for Sorkin to reflect on the ongoing transformation of the neighbourhoods through which he passes. Inspired by events both mundane and monumental, "Twenty Minutes in Manhattan" unearths a network of relationships between the physical and the social city. Sorkin takes the reader past local characters, neighbourhood stores, buildings, streets and blocks, providing an informative, witty and sometimes humorous travelogue of a part of Manhattan. Yet his perambulations fuel more than a general reflection on what he sees every day: they also offer a technique for engaging a wide range of issues that preoccupy him as an architect, urbanist and citizen. Whether Sorkin is despairing at street garbage, or admiring elevator etiquette, "Twenty Minutes in Manhattan" offers a testing ground for speculation about the way in which the city can be newly imagined and designed, to deal with pressing issues such as the crisis of the environment, free expression and public space, security and surveillance, the place of history, and the future of the neighbourhood. "Twenty Minutes in Manhattan", growing out of an intimate relationship with a much-loved locality, ultimately offers a grounded set of ideas relevant not only to the preservation and amelioration of New York, but also to cities everywhere. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Men's clothes went black in the nineteenth century: Dickens, Ruskin and Baudelaire all asked why it was, in this age of supreme wealth and power, that men wanted to dress as if going to a funeral. For an answer one must look at the history of black. Over the last 1000 years there have been successive expansions in the wearing of black from the Church to the Court, from the Court to officials and the merchant class. Though the fashion was often smart and elegant, the growth and expansion of it were fed by several dark currents in Europe's history: politics; asceticism; and, religious warfare. It was only in the nineteenth century that the black fashion fully came into its own; the most telling witnesses constantly saw connections between the taste for black and the forms of constraint with which European society regimented itself. Although the twentieth century has aimed for new colours and a new direction, black has retained its authority as well as its associations with strength and cruelty. At the same time black is still smart, and fashion keeps returning to it. It is, perhaps, the colour that has come to acquire the greatest, most significant range of meaning in human history. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. From the earliest scratches on stone and bone to the languages of computers and the internet, "A History of Writing" offers an investigation into the origin and development of writing throughout the world. Commencing with the first stages of information storage knot records, tally sticks, pictographic storytelling the book then focuses on the emergence of complete writing systems in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC, and their diffusion to Egypt, the Indus Valley and points east, with special attention given to Semitic writing systems and their eventual spread to the Indian subcontinent. Also documented is the rise of Phoenician and its effect on the Greek alphabet, generating the many alphabetic scripts of the West. Chinese, Korean and Japanese writing systems and scripts are dealt with in depth, as is writing in pre-Colombian America. Also explored are Western Europe's medieval manuscripts and the history of printing, leading to the innovations in technology and spelling rules of the 19th and 20th centuries. Illustrated with numerous examples, this book offers a global overview in a form that everyone can follow.The author also reveals his own discoveries made since the early 1980s, making it a useful reference for both students and specialists as well as the general reader. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. "The Tempest" is widely seen as Shakespeare's crowning work in the canon of English literature, but the universal power of the play and its invocation of peoples, places, images and phrases from both the Old World and the New has seen it appropriated and transformed by writers and performers from far outside that tradition. It is set on an uncharted island, and this book offers a new map of the island, consisting of an innovative collection of historical, critical and creative readings, juxtaposing texts and images from different periods and a variety of geographical and disciplinary spheres. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Polari is a language that was used chiefly by gay men in the first half of the twentieth century. At a time when being gay could result in criminal prosecution or worse Polari offered its speakers a degree of public camouflage, a way of expressing humour, and a means of identification and of establishing a community. Its roots are colourful and varied from Cant to Lingua Franca to prostitutes slang and in the mid-1960s it was thrust into the limelight by the characters Julian and Sandy, voiced by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams, on the BBC radio show Round the Horne (Oh Mr Horne, how bona to vada your dolly old eke!). Paul Baker recounts the story of Polari with skill, erudition and tenderness. He traces its historical origins and describes its linguistic nuts and bolts, explores the ways and the environments in which it was spoken, explains the reasons for its decline, and tells of its unlikely re-emergence in the twenty-first century. With a cast of drag queens and sailors, Dilly boys and macho clones, Fabulosa! is an essential document of recent history and a fascinating and fantastically readable account of this funny, filthy and ingenious language. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Barbed wire cuts across more than just property, war and politics. This most vicious tool of control has played a critical role in the modern experience, be it territorial expansion and settlement or local and international conflict. However, it has other histories; those constructed through image and text in the arts, media and popular culture. These representations - in painting, photography, poetry, personal memoirs, cartoons, novels, advertisements and film - have never before been critically examined. In this book, Alan Krell investigates the place barbed wire holds in the social imagination. Invented in France in 1860, it was developed independently in America where it was used to control livestock on the Great Plains; both to "keep out" and "keep in". Promoted as the "Ideal Fence", barbed wire's menacing qualities were soon manifest. The epithet, "The Devil's Rope", anticipated its transformation into a tool of war in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henceforth, it would become synonymous with repression, the loss of liberty and murder. Barbed wire's conflicting character makes it an appropriate symbol of modernity, captured memorably in Amnesty International's logo of barbed wire encircling a candle. It has powerful associations with Christ's crown of thorns, and Krell examines the use of such symbolism in contemporary art. He also refers to literature and popular culture - "The Avengers, for example - to explain how it has become part of our everyday life and imagination. Finally, Krell shows how barbed wire has acquired meanings outside the purely historical and political realm and is now increasingly regarded as a commodity, acquiring a status as a collectable. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This work explores the urban extremes of Europe in their cultural, physical, geographical and mythical dimensions. "Extreme Europe" considers the history and visual culture of Europe in the decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Barber sets out to explore and define Europe's political and conceptual edges, first making a circuit eastwards through Albania to Turkey, then south- and westwards along the Mediterranean coast, with stops in Crete and Marseilles. The book then moves through several decades of history as they can be read in both the surviving and rejuvenated fabrics of Berlin, and finally through the frayed, disaffected and multicultural landscapes of Paris' outer suburbs. The author's purpose in scanning Europe's geographical and psychological extremes is to examine its cities and their surrounding areas as sites of a conflict between the mesmerizing, all-engulfing power of the visual media and the tenacious, barely surviving traces of traditional culture. The book maintains that the "breakdown zones" at Europe's urban edges are the areas where its most oppositional and vital images and languages are being created today. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. In this title, the author thinks about what constitutes identity in present-day Europe. Looking at people and cities from the periphery, he tries to discover an "archaeology of streets and faces" which could bring him closer to himself. Set in peripheral cities such as Trieste, Marseilles, Drseden and Bratislava, and in major ones like Vienna and Amsterdam, this work is about the feeling of being abroad, of losing part of one's self in order to gain a richer life. Mingling travel stories with philosophical reflections, Hertmans's poetic text proves the 16th-century observation that every journey is a "voyage around your own chamber". His book is a personal statement about living in Europe today which looks beyond the surface to the heart of contemporary urban existence. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The cinema has been the pre-eminent popular art form of the 20th century. In Cinemas of the World, James Chapman examines the relationship between film and society in the modern world: film as entertainment medium, film as a reflection of national cultures and preoccupations, film as an instrument of propaganda. He also explores two interrelated issues that have recurred throughout the history of cinema: the economic and cultural hegemony of Hollywood on the one hand, and, on the other, the attempts of film-makers elsewhere to establish indigenous national cinemas drawing on their own cultures and societies. Chapman examines the rise to dominance of Hollywood cinema in the silent and early sound periods. He discusses the characteristic themes of American movies from the Depression to the end of the Cold War especially those found in the western and film noir - genres that are often used as vehicles for exploring issues central to us society and politics. He looks at national cinemas in various European countries in the period between the end of the First World War and the end of the Second, which all exhibit the formal and aesthetic properties of modernism. The emergence of the so-called new cinemas of Europe and the wider world since 1960 are also explored. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Victor Hugo (1802-85) is an icon of French culture. He achieved immense success as a poet, dramatist, and novelist, and he was also elected to both houses of the French Parliament. Leading the Romantic campaign against artistic tradition and defying the Second Empire in exile, he became synonymous with the progressive ideals of the French Revolution. His state funeral in Paris made headlines across the world, and his breadth of appeal remains evident today, not least thanks to the popularity of his bestseller, Les Mis rables, and its myriad theatrical and cinematic incarnations. This biography, the first in English for over twenty years, provides a concise but comprehensive exploration of Hugo's monumental body of work within the context of his dramatic life. Hugo wrestled with family tragedy and personal misgivings while being pulled into the turmoil of the nineteenth century, from the fall of Napoleon's Empire to the rise of France's Third Republic. Throughout these twists of fate, he sensed a natural order of collapse and renewal. This unending cycle of creation shaped his ideas about freedom and roused his imagination, which he channeled into his prolific writing and other outlets like drawing. As Bradley Stephens argues, such creative intellectual vigor suggests that Hugo was too restless to sit comfortably on the pedestal of literary greatness; Hugo's was a mind as revolutionary as the time in which he lived. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. In this penetrating analysis of a little-explored area of Japanese cultural history, Timon Screech reassesses the career of the chief minister Matsudaira Sadanobu, who played a key role in defining what we think of as Japanese culture today. Aware of how visual representations could support or undermine regimes, Sadanobu promoted painting to advance his own political aims and improve the shogunate's image. As an antidote to the hedonistic ukiyo-e, or floating world, tradition, which he opposed, Sadanobu supported attempts to construct a new approach to painting modern life. At the same time, he sought to revive historical and literary painting, favouring such artists as the flamboyant, innovative Maruyama Okyo. After the city of Kyoto was destroyed by fire in 1788, its reconstruction provided the stage for the renewal of Japan's iconography of power, the consummation of the 'shogun's painted culture'. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Ideas about quantities, magnitudes and frequencies shape and give texture to almost everything we feel, say, dream and do. In Living by Numbers, now available in paperback, Steven Connor explores the many ways in which we live in, and by, a world of numbers. The book opens up for the first time the richness, variety and subtlety of how we do things with numbers and, just as importantly, how they do things with us. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. "London Fashion Week" has maintained the capital's position as one of the most important cities on the international fashion calendar for over twenty-five years. The roots of London's pre-eminence as an international epicentre of haute couture and pret-a-porter stretch back centuries, and they are explored here in "London After a Fashion". Arguing that fashion was central to the impact of modernity in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century London, Alistair O'Neill maps the progress of fashion against the city's neighbourhoods and streets. Carnaby Street, Soho, Jermyn Street and King's Road each get their turn in London after a Fashion, along with many others, revealing the intersection between London's urban history and the development of fashion. O'Neill's analysis is not merely confined to clothing from the popularity of tattooing in the 1890s to the diverse uses of chintz in the 1980s design aesthetic, he traces the history of fashion in its various manifestations and explores how particular figures were key to disseminating fashion throughout British and international cultures. The author shows that participating in fashion was not only a pleasurable aspect of modern urban life, but also a fundamental element of contemporary cultural sensibilities. "London After a Fashion" unearths vital moments of revolution in fashion that reflect deeper changes in London's history and culture, contending that these historic changes are unfairly marginalized in accounts of transformation in the city's culture. A fascinating look at fashion and urbanism, this book offers an intriguing reconsideration of the role of fashion in city life and fills in long overlooked gaps in the social history of London and modern design. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Whales are the largest animals ever to have lived on the earth: the longest recorded was over 33 metres long, the heaviest more than 171,000 kgs; a large Blue Whale's tongue alone can weigh more than an elephant. Whales can stay underwater for more than an hour, some speculate that they can live for up to 200 years, and they are among the most intelligent animals known to humanity. "Whale" recounts the evolutionary and ecological background, as well as the cultural history, of these extraordinary mammals, long persecuted and now celebrated throughout the world. From the tales of Jonah and Brendan the Navigator to Moby Dick and recent discoveries of cetacean songs and culture, Joe Roman looks at the role of the whale in human history, mythology, art, literature, commerce and science. Illustrated with Stone Age carvings, medieval broadsheets and colour underwater photographs, "Whale" shows how our perception of these animals has changed over the centuries: a hundred years ago, a stranded whale was usually greeted with flensing knives; now people bring boats and harnesses to return a wayward creature to the sea. Written by an author with vast experience of the subject, "Whale" will appeal to all those interested in whales and the conservation of the oceans, as well as anyone studying cultural history and the natural sciences. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. Illustrated by Illustrated (illustrator). First Edition. Cloth. In print for $45.00. Review insert laid in.; Octavo.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. For this book, fifteen distinguished historians were given a deceptively simple task: identify their choice for the worst military leader in history and then explain why theirs is the worst. From the clueless Conrad von Hotzendorf and George A. Custer to the criminal Baron Roman F. von Ungern-Sternberg and the bungling Garnet Wolseley, this book presents a rogues gallery of military incompetents. Rather than merely rehashing biographical details, the contributors take an original and unconventional look at military leadership in a way that appeals to both specialists and general readers alike. While there are plenty of books that analyse the keys to success, The Worst Military Leaders in History offers lessons of failure to avoid. In other words, this book is a 'how-not-to' guide to leadership. "Ranging far and wide in chronology and geography . . . this is a stimulating collection of essayspithily written and persuasively arguedthat fills a gap in the important study of 'those who make someone elses victory possible.'" - Saul David / Times (UK) "On the night Russia invaded Ukraine, I was reading a new book, The Worst Military Leaders in History, edited by Jennings and Steele. The monumental failings of leadership described range from the well-known death of General Custer and all his men to the less remembered Athenian leader, Nikias, whose disastrous attempt to capture Syracuse led to the collapse of the entire Athenian empire. Three weeks on, it seems like a second edition might have to include the Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoygu, and his top brass." - William Hague / Times (UK). The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Now in B-format paperback, this book describes ten women over the past three hundred years who have found walking essential to their sense of themselves, as people and as writers. Wanderers traces their footsteps, from eighteenth-century parsons daughter Elizabeth Carter who desired nothing more than to be taken for a vagabond in the wilds of southern England to modern walker-writers such as Nan Shepherd and Cheryl Strayed. For each, walking was integral, whether it was rambling for miles across the Highlands, like Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, or pacing novels into being, as Virginia Woolf did around Bloomsbury. Offering a beguiling view of the history of walking, Wanderers guides us through the different ways of seeing of being articulated by these ten pathfinding women. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Look. Swirl. Sniff. Taste. Savour. Whether you're tasting a refreshing white or an aromatic red, these well-known steps are the only proper way to take the first sip of wine. How did wine surpass all other beverages to achieve global domination? In Wine, Marc Millon travels back to the origins of modern man to find the answer, discovering that this heady drink is intertwined with the roots of civilization itself. Wine traces the long history of the most complex, mysterious and magical of the world's beverages. It takes us from the Transcaucasus some 8,000 years ago across the Mediterranean Sea and throughout Europe with classical civilization, to the New World with the conquistadors, on to the distant lands of Australia and New Zealand and now to the burgeoning economies of India and China, where wine culture has exploded in the past decade. Wine explains winemaking techniques past and present, looking at every part of the process from vine-growing to bottling and marketing, as well as exploring the culture - and character - of wines around the world. Crisp and concise, it is the perfect introduction for novices while offering an engaging chronicle for experts. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Despite its long history, the factory has a particular appeal to modern architects, who have often preferred this building type as "authentic" architecture to the grand public buildings and luxury private dwellings of the contemporary city. Many European architects who looked to America for inspiration in the early 20th century were far more excited by the great factories of Detroit than they were by the monuments of New York and Washington, DC. This book examines the factory in a number of incarnations; as image, as icon, as innovator and as laboratory. It traces the history of the modern factory from the utopian schemes of Robert Owen or Claude Ledoux in the early 19th century, through the great modernist "cathedrals of industry" of Peter Behrens, Albert Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright, to the post-industrial revival of former factories, such as Renzo Piano's reconstruction of the Fiat Lingotto factory in Turin, or the landscaped industrial parks created out of former steel mills in the Ruhr area of Germany. This is the first book in the "Objekt" series, which examines a wide range of iconic modern objects across many design fields, including architecture, industrial design, graphics and fashion. The books are not intended as exhaustive histories of their subject, but are written as thematic and discursive essays, keeping in mind the broader cultural meanings of objects or buildings as much as their intended functions in the modern period. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.