Its coverage and color capture the authors' lasting excitement for the period and its artists. A three-part organization covers international currents in the Fourteen Century, Fifteenth-Century Innovations, and Renaissance and Reformation in the Sixteenth Century. For a complete understanding of Northern Renaissance Art--its geography, patronage, and audience expectations.

    Noted down in historical documents, copied and widely repeated, it doesn't take long for a version of the truth to become accepted as fact. But who invents these false accounts in the first place, and why do they gain traction so quickly?Far from concerning the obscure and insignificant parts of our history, these fundamental inaccuracies and downright lies colour the depiction of many of those pivotal characters and events we learnt about at school. Cleopatra, Marco Polo, Captain Cook, Joan of Arc; most of us could probably reel off a fact or two about each. But as this intriguing book reveals, a closer examination of these core parts of our social and political history shows that often all was not as it seemed, and that the agendas of those responsible for recording these events had a huge impact on what was reported and what was covered up. The Mysteries of History is an entertaining romp through the centuries, uncovering the great mysteries surrounding some of the most inaccurate and misleading parts of our past.

    At the heart of their chilling scenario is their contention that the plague was spread by direct human contact (not from rat fleas) and was, in fact, a virus perhaps similar to AIDS and Ebola. Noting the periodic occurrence of plagues throughout history, the authors predict its inevitable re--emergence sometime in the future, transformed by mass mobility and bioterrorism into an even more devastating killer.

    Studies major works by important sculptors since Rodin in the light of different approaches to general sculptural issues to reveal the logical progressions from nineteenth-century figurative works to the conceptual work of the present.

    Gothic monuments bear witness to a dynamic age, when old values were being redefined, often with great drama and debate. Here is a richly-illustrated overview of the period's architecture, sculpture, painting, stained glass, and jewelry, from its 12th-century French origins to its early 16th-century conclusion.

    Produced by the Hulton Getty Picture Collection. Publisher: Barnes & Noble. 398 pages. Hardback

    Egypt is a perfect case in point, almost a blank slate for most of us as it regards details of their everyday life. This useful and informative book attempts to set the record straight by offering a distinctive take on that most mythologized of epochs. Who would have guessed, for example, that the first strike in recorded history took place in 1152 BC during work on the necropolis in the Valley of the Kings, a protest by construction workers against delayed deliveries of oil and flour? Two fairly banal commodities maybe, but essential: oil protected the skin against the savage desert climate, whilst flour was the base ingredient for thirty different kinds of nutritional cake. It is this detailed examination of the evidence that distinguishes this volume, with chapters on

    J. Clark rewrites the history of modern art. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, he explains, the project called socialism may have come to an end at roughly the same moment as modernism. Did modernism and socialism depend on each other for their vitality—for their sense of the future and their wish to live in a fully material world? Have they died? Aware of modernism’s foibles and blind spots, but passionately attached to the movement’s wildness, Clark poses these fundamental questions in Farewell to an Idea. Modernism, Clark argues, was an extreme answer to an extreme condition—the one Max Weber summed up as “the disenchantment of the world.” Clark focuses on instances of maximum stress, when the movement revealed its true nature. The book begins with Jacques-Louis David, painting at the height of the Terror in 1793, then leaps forward to Pissarro a hundred years later, struggling to picture Two Young Peasant Women ina way that agreed with his anarchist politics. Next the author turns in succession to Cézanne’s paintings of the Grandes Baigneuses and their coincidence in time (and maybe intention) with Freud’s launching of psychoanalysis; to Picasso’s Cubism; and to avant-garde art after the Russian Revolution. Clark concludes with a reading of Jackson Pollock’s tragic version of abstraction and suggests a new set of terms to describe avant-garde art—perhaps in its final flowering—in America after 1945. Shifting between broad, speculative history and intense analysis of specific works, Clark not only transfigures our usual understanding of modern art, he also launches a new set of proposals about modernity itself.

    W. E. Fairbairn, taught the famed British Commandos from this classic, long-out-of-print manual on unarmed combat. Known for his "get tough" attitude, Fairbairn designed these practical methods after years of training troops and watching ruffians, thugs, bandits and bullies. Now you can profit from his experience.

    Walk in the footsteps of the Medici, sip aperitivi, and discover the cultural heart of Italy: with Rick Steves on your side, Florence and Tuscany can be yours!Inside Rick Steves Florence & Tuscany you'll find: Comprehensive coverage for spending a week or more exploring Florence and Tuscany Rick's strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites Top sights and hidden gems, from the Uffizi Gallery and the Duomo to a 600-year-old perfumery How to connect with local culture: Let a street musician serenade you on the Ponte Vecchio, stroll through a morning market sampling freshly-made pasta, and sip full-bodied wines with Montalcino locals at a corner enoteca Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick's candid, humorous insight The best places to eat, sleep, and relax with a glass of wine Self-guided walking tours of lively neighborhoods and incredible museums Detailed maps for exploring on the go, including driving tours through the heart of Tuscany and Brunello wine country Useful resources including a packing list, an Italian phrase book, a historical overview, and recommended reading Over 400 bible-thin pages include everything worth seeing without weighing you down Complete, up-to-date information on Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca, Volterra, San Gimignano, Montepulciano, Pienza, Montalcino, Cortona, and more Make the most of every day and every dollar with Rick Steves Florence & Tuscany.Spending less than a week exploring Florence? Try Rick Steves Pocket Florence.

    At every stage of civilization, people have relied on symbolic expression, and advances in science and technology have only increased our dependence on symbols. The language of symbols is considered a science, and this informative volume offers an indispensable tool in the study of symbology. It can be used as a reference or simply browsed for pleasure. Many of its entries — those on architecture, mandala, numbers, serpent, water, and zodiac, for example — can be read as independent essays. The vitality of symbology has never been greater: An essential part of the ancient arts of the Orient and of the Western medieval traditions, symbolism underwent a 20th-century revival with the study of the unconscious, both directly in the field of dreams, visions, and psychoanalysis, and indirectly in art and poetry. A wide audience awaits the assistance of this dictionary in elucidating the symbolic worlds encountered in both the arts and the history of ideas.

    By uncovering the divine whisper that lies behind the best poetry and prose from across the centuries, Calasso gives us a renewed sense of the mystery and enchantment of great literature.From the banishment of the classical divinities during the Age of Reason to their emancipation by the Romantics and their place in the literature of our own time, the history of the gods can also be read as a ciphered and splendid history of literary inspiration. Rewriting that story, Calasso carves out a sacred space for literature where the presence of the gods is discernible. His inquiry into the nature of “absolute literature” transports us to the realms of Dionysus and Orpheus, Baudelaire and Mallarmé, and prompts a lucid and impassioned defense of poetic form, even when apparently severed from any social function. Lyrical and assured, Literature and the Gods is an intensely engaging work of literary affirmation that deserves to be read alongside the masterpieces it celebrates.

    The new enemy: Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, one of the greatest princes in Christendom, premier baron of all the territories in southern France where the langue d'oc was spoken. Thus began the Albigensian Crusade, named after the town of Albi. It culminated in 1244 at the mountain fortress of Montségur with the massacre of the Cathars, or "pure ones" - a faith more ancient than Catholicism. At stake was not only the growth of this rival religion right in the heart of the Catholic Church's territory, but also the very survival of the Languedoc itself as an autonomous and independent region of France.

    David Lewis-Williams proposes that the explanation for this lies in the evolution of the human mind. Cro-Magnons, unlike the Neanderthals, possessed a more advanced neurological makeup that enabled them to experience shamanistic trances and vivid mental imagery. It became important for people to "fix," or paint, these images on cave walls, which they perceived as the membrane between their world and the spirit world from which the visions came. Over time, new social distinctions developed as individuals exploited their hallucinations for personal advancement, and the first truly modern society emerged.Illuminating glimpses into the ancient mind are skillfully interwoven here with the still-evolving story of modern-day cave discoveries and research. The Mind in the Cave is a superb piece of detective work, casting light on the darkest mysteries of our earliest ancestors while strengthening our wonder at their aesthetic achievements.

    They includes stories set down in travelers' reports and plantation journals from the early nineteenth century, tales gathered by collectors such as Joel Chandler Harris and Zora Neale Hurston, and narratives tape-recorded by Roger Abrahams himself during extensive expeditions throughout the American South and the Caribbean.