In evocative shades of peach, gold, ochre and olive, his seductive compositions of patterns, flowers, and beautiful women became paradigms of the Belle Epoque years. Mucha's work permeated illustration, posters, postcards, and advertising designs of his day. His striking posters of star actress Sarah Bernhardt were particularly famous. Alongside this delicate decorative work, Mucha also harbored committed humanist ideals and nationalist beliefs. With monumental works such as The Slav Epic, he expressed his staunch support for Pan-Slavism, promoting the political independence of the Czech and Slavic nations from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.This book presents key works from Mucha's distinctive oeuvre to introduce an artist who, with few rivals, distilled the spirit of an age.About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN s Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions "

    Our authors blanket the city researching where to indulge in just about anything you want, anytime, including the world's best cuisine choices, Broadway theaters and avant-garde Chelsea art, Soho's decadent shopping, Brooklyn's Williamsburg and Park Slope, Central Park's gathering spaces, offbeat outer borough adventures, and dozens of restaurants and bars where New Yorkers go to hang out, lay back and enjoy neighborhood life in one of the world's truly epic cities. Written by three New Yorkers with three opinionated takes on the city they love, this guide will help you navigate your way like a local.

    Together these two volumes form the most comprehensive books available on Dylan's words. Clinton Heylin is the world's leading Dylan biographer and expert, and he has arranged the songs in a continually surprising chronology of when they were actually written rather than when they appeared on albums. Using newly discovered manuscripts, anecdotal evidence, and a seemingly limitless knowledge of every Bob Dylan live performance, Heylin reveals hundreds of facts about the songs. Here we learn about Dylan's contributions to the Traveling Wilburys, the women who inspired "Blood on the Tracks "and "Desire," " "the sources Dylan "plagiarized" for "Love and Theft "and "Modern Times," " "why he left "Blind Willie McTell" off of "Infidels "and "Series of Dreams" off of "Oh Mercy," " "what broke the long dry spell he had in the 1990s, and much more. This is an essential purchase for every true Bob Dylan fan.

    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

    Within three generations of the foundation of the Belgian Royal House in 1831, Coburgs had tarried into almost every royal family in Europe. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the throne of Belgium is that it ever came into being: created after the successful rebellion against the Dutch, handed to an imported German prince, it was hoped, without much enthusiasm, that it would weld together a new nation of disparate and quarrelsome elements. It has survived to the present, in an era which has seen older and seemingly more secure dynasties vanish. The first Coburg of Belgium, Leopold I, as that 'Dear Uncle' to whom Queen Victoria was so abjectly devoted in the early years of her reign. Cheated by the death of his first wife, Charlotte, Princess of Wales, daughter of George IV and Queen Caroline, from becoming Prince Consort to the Queen of England, the resilient Leopold of Saxe-Coburg not only became the constitutional monarch of Belgium but married the daughter of the King of France. With this the Coburgs were well launched on a climb from their petty German principality to position of enormous world power. Leopold I's son, Leopold II, vastly enriched the family fortunes by his avaricious plunder of the Congo and scandalised Europe with his sexual promiscuity. In fact, not until the reign of 'Albert of the Belgians' (1909-34) and his beloved Queen Elisabeth, did the royal Coburgs prove themselves a very endearing family.

    Fully updated and revised, this comprehensive guide features forty-seven trails in Big Bend National Park.

    Josie's travels are as fascinating as they are varied; she endures a horrific storm at sea, samples the deadly puffer fish and visits the two cities which will forever symbolise the horror of war: Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But wherever she goes, no matter how remote or industrious the area, Josie encounters the friendly, quirky and unbelievably generous Japanese people, from those who load her down with cabbages and cans of Pocari Sweat to one couple who left her the key to their shop - and told her to sleep by the till!

    This artificial division of the earth became a feature of the subsequent trading of territories between rival kingdoms. By 1884, as a result of the British Empire's commercial pre-eminence, the globe's prime meridian was definitively drawn through Greenwich. By 1938 the line two degrees west was chosen as England's prime meridian running as it did through most of the country, from Berwick-Upon-Tweed on the Northumbrian coast to the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset.Guided by his Ordnance Survey map, Nicholas Crane's book Two Degrees West walks the longitudinal tightrope of this most manmade of geographical lines, stretching nearly 600 kilometres from north to south, never deviating more than a few metres either side of the meridian. The result is a diverse cross-section of England in the late 1990s, from the bleak agrarian world of Northumbria and the Pennines to the racial and urban hybridity of the Black Country. Two Degrees West is an idiosyncratic, offbeat travel book, offering a unique view on the state of the nation at the end of the 1990s. --Jerry Brotton, author of Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World

    Performances of Aïda, La Bohème, Carmen, and Don Giovanni — the four operas most often performed — constitute approximately 75 percent of the yearly schedule of operas throughout the world.This volume contains everything the opera goer needs to derive full satisfaction from La Bohème except the musical score itself. Most important, it provides the complete text of the Italian libretto, just as it is actually sung; that is, where a singer repeats a phrase several times, each of the repetitions is given here. And facing the Italian text is a completely new translation of the libretto into modern, idiomatic English.In addition to the libretto and English translation, this edition provides a careful, concise summary of the plot of La Bohème and a complete list of the opera's characters. There is also a brief, highly informative introduction by the translator that traces Puccini's masterpiece back to its source in Henry Murger's autobiographical novel La Vie Bohème, illuminating the early history of the opera and its later development.Opera lovers can use this book with their own recordings of the opera, read it before attending a performance, or can easily take it along to the performance itself. Those who have regretted the lack of a good, authentic, readable edition of the Italian libretto of La Bohème, and have complained of the stodginess of existing English translations, will recognize in this book a first-rate aid to the understanding of one of Puccini's most celebrated operas.

    "If I don't offer it milk, our son will grow up to look like a lizard," she explained. Clearly I had a lot to learn about life in Africa.On the cusp of middle age, Simon Fenton leaves Britain in search of adventure and finds Senegal, love, fatherhood, witch doctors—and a piece of land that could make a perfect guest house, if only he knew how to build one. The Casamance is an undiscovered paradise here mystic Africa governs life, people walk to the beat of the djembe, when it rains it pours, and the mangoes are free. But the fact that his name translates to "vampire" and he has had a curse placed on him via the medium of eggs could mean Simon’s new life may not be so easy.

    To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417901306.

    Artists painted, sculpted, and photographed her; poets praised her strange beauty. Among them were Gabriele D’Annunzio, Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, Cecil Beaton, and American writers Tennessee Williams, Jack Kerouac, and Ezra Pound. Couturiers Fortuny, Poiret, and Erté dressed her. Some became lovers, others awestruck admirers, but all were influenced by this extraordinary muse. The extravagance ended in 1930 when Casati was more than twenty-five million dollars in debt. Fleeing to London, she spent her final flamboyant years there until her death in 1957. Now nearly a half-century later, Casati’s fashion legacy continues to inspire such designers as John Galliano, Karl Lagerfeld, and Tom Ford. Fully authorized and accurate, this is the fantastic story of the Marchesa Luisa Casati.Scot D. Ryersson is an award-winning freelance writer, illustrator, and graphic designer. He lives in New Jersey.Michael Orlando Yaccarino is a freelance writer specializing in international genre film, fashion, music, and unconventional historical figures. He lives in New Jersey.

    Ancient Angkor embodies the fruits of their collaboration and experience.

    While the area is investigated in the most minute detail, Gide is clear about his position as the responsive outsider. He does not claim cultural familiarity - rather, he treats all that he describes with the authority of a writer whose startling awareness makes places and people live indelibly in the imagination.

    In this guide, he provides trekkers of all standards with up-to-date and reliable information on the region, including health and safety advice, notes on eco-tourism and detailed route descriptions.