Bøker utgitt av Reaktion Books

A vivid journey through the gastronomical, botanical, cultural and political history of beans.

The first history of American handmade and homemade pornography.

An enlightening and entertaining guide to the natural and cultural history of the wasp.

Written by an active researcher in the field, Galaxy: Mapping the Infinite tells the rich scientific story of galaxy evolution and observation - discoveries of 'spiral nebulae', the nature of galaxies and the current 'World Model'.

A timely reappraisal of Indian writer, composer, musician, artist and activist Rabindranath Tagore.

A beautifully illustrated monograph on the innovative and at times controversial sculptor Donatello.

A natural and cultural history of the majestic yet endangered polar bear.

A beautifully illustrated, authoritative overview of humankind's fascination with the ringed planet Saturn.

An accessible introduction to photography's perhaps most contested, complex and emotive subject, war.

A new account of the controversial alchemist, physician and social radical known as Paracelsus.

A delightful global history of mustard, one of the world's most loved condiments.

The surprising and intriguing history of the much-loved goldfish.

Drawing on insights, images and unpublished diaries, Julia Frey explores Edouard Vuillard's private world.

The ultimate guide to fortified wines for discerning imbibers and modern mixologists everywhere.

A ground-breaking, beautifully illustrated study of the father of French painting, Nicolas Poussin.

This wide-ranging book describes the importance, as well as the fragility of glaciers.

A highly original and wide-ranging study of 'the end' in art.

A fascinating reappraisal of Britain's `oldest ally', the House of Braganza.

A full account of Renaissance artist Raphael's prodigious yet short-lived career.

A challenging, iconoclastic history of empire-building from the point of view of women.

A return by essential film critic Laura Mulvey to questions of film theory and feminism.

This incisive and illuminating biography follows the three themes that shaped the life of Leonardo da Vinci and, through him, forever changed Western art and imagination: nature, art, and self-fashioning. Nature and art helped form Leonardo. He spent his first twelve years in the Tuscan countryside before entering the most reputed artistic workshop of Florence. There he blossomed as one of the most promising painters of his time and promptly applied his skills to explore and question the world through science and invention. Leonardo was also self-fashioned: he received only a basic education and grew up around peasants and artisans. But from the 1480s onwards, he transformed himself into a court artist and became a familiar of kings and rulers. Following the chronology of Leonardo's extraordinary life, this book examines Leonardo as artist, courtier, and thinker, and explores how these aspects found expression in his paintings, as well as in his work in sculpture, architecture, theater design, urban planning, engineering, anatomy, geology, and cartography. François Quiviger concludes with observations on Leonardo's relevance today as a model of the multidisciplinary artist who combines imagination, art, and science--the original, and ultimate, Renaissance Man.

Eyewitnessing evaluates the worth of images as historical evidence, examining religious, political, advertising and commodified images. Peter Burke challenges the conventional view that images represent specific historical meanings.

A global history of restaurants beyond white tablecloths and maître d's, Dining Out presents restaurants both as businesses and as venues for a range of human experiences. From banquets in twelfth-century China to the medicinal roots of French restaurants, the origins of restaurants are not singular--nor is the history this book tells. Katie Rawson and Elliott Shore highlight stories across time and place, including how chifa restaurants emerged from the migration of Chinese workers and their marriage to Peruvian businesswomen in nineteenth-century Peru; how Alexander Soyer transformed kitchen chemistry by popularizing the gas stove, pre-dating the pyrotechnics of molecular gastronomy by a century; and how Harvey Girls dispelled the ill repute of waiting tables, making rich lives for themselves across the American West. From restaurant architecture to technological developments, staffing and organization, tipping and waiting table, ethnic cuisines, and slow and fast foods, this delectably illustrated and profoundly informed and entertaining history takes us from the world's first restaurants in Kaifeng, China, to the latest high-end dining experiences.

"Art is often seen as a solitary, even a reclusive, endeavor. But visual artists, writers, and musicians often find themselves energized by a collective environment. Sharing ideas around a table has always provided a starting, and a continuing, place for fruitful exchanges between artists of all kinds. In her wide-ranging new book, Mary Ann Caws explores a rich variety of gathering places, past and present, which have been conducive to the release and sustenance of creative energies. Creative Gatherings surveys meeting locations across Europe and the United States, from cityscapes to island hideouts, from private homes to public cafes and artists' colonies. Examples include Florence Griswold's house in Old Lyme, Connecticut, meeting place of the Old Lyme Art Colony; Prague's Le Louvre caf, haunt of Kafka and Einstein; Picasso's modernist hangout in Barcelona, Els Quatre Gats; Charleston, gathering place of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa and Duncan Bell; and the caf s of Saint-Germain-des-Pr s and Montparnasse: the hangouts of Apollinaire, Sartre, and Patti Smith. Interweaving two hundred examples of collaborative artworks throughout the text, with more than one hundred in color, Creative Gatherings is a beautiful, erudite commingling as inspiring as the gathering places Caws depicts."--Publisher's description.

Boxing is one of the oldest and most exciting of sports: its bruising and bloody confrontations have permeated Western culture since 3000 BC. Looking afresh at everything from neo-classical sculpture to hip-hop lyrics, the author also explores the way in which the history of boxing has intersected with the history of mass media.

An illuminating reappraisal of Belgian surrealist artist Rene Magritte.

Psyche on the Skin charts the secret history of self-harm. This book describes its many forms, from sexual self-mutilation and hysterical malingering in the late Victorian period, to self-castrating religious sects, to self-mutilation and self-destruction in art, music and popular culture.

Live Wires explores how five key electronic technologies revolutionized music.