Serving as both an introduction to fifteenth-century Italian painting and as a text on how to interpret social history from the style of pictures in a given historical period, this new edition to Baxandall's pre-eminent scholarly volume examines early Renaissance painting, and explains how the style of painting in any society reflects the visual skills and habits that evolve out of daily life. Renaissance painting, for example, mirrors the experience of such activities as preaching, dancing, and gauging barrels. The volume includes discussions of a wide variety of painters, including Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Stefano di Giovanni, Sandro Botticelli, Masaccio, Luca Signorelli, Boccaccio, and countless others. Baxandall also defines and illustrates sixteen concepts used by a contemporary critic of painting, thereby assembling the basic equipment needed to explore fifteenth-century art.

    Drawing on newly opened archives and the reminiscences of the major players, John Lewis Gaddis explains not just what happened but why—from the months in 1945 when the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. went from alliance to antagonism to the barely averted holocaust of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the maneuvers of Nixon and Mao, Reagan and Gorbachev. Brilliant, accessible, almost Shakespearean in its drama, The Cold War stands as a triumphant summation of the era that, more than any other, shaped our own.

    Tucker covers Stalin’s life from his first revolutionary years until the end of the 1920s. This important period of his life is the key to understanding how a dictator is formed and how his cruel totalitarian regime was born. With an in-depth analysis of Stalin’s personality and beliefs – set against a historical examination of Soviet society – this captivating book helps us to understand how and why Stalinism occurred. Examining the events that led up to one of the 20th century’s most devastating spectacles, Stalin as Revolutionary is an intelligent and informative take on this terrifying political figure. Praise for Stalin as Revolutionary “Tucker has achieved a real breakthrough… his analysis throws a flood of light into previously obscure corners… Tucker with his analysis of Stalin’s personality structure has opened up an enormously promising vein of research.” Robert M. Slusser, American Historical Review “This towering figure of the twentieth century has hitherto lacked a successful and full-scale biography… Robert Tucker marks the beginning of the end of this situation.” Robert H. McNeal, Russian Review “An absorbing narrative and interpretation of Stalin’s early years and his development as a Bolshevik leader up to 1929 when he arrived at the summit of power… A superb work comparable to Isaac Deutscher’s multi-volume history of Trotsky.” George Charney, Library Journal “Years of research and reflection have made this biography of Stalin’s early years a real historical and literary achievement.” Foreign Affairs “[The book] looks like it’s transforming the field of Stalin studies... Tucker best brings the political and economic issues back to life, and the contenders with them.” Michael Ratcliffe, The Times “I am not enamoured of most ‘psychoanalytic history.’ Yet Tucker’s thesis is convincing, because he understands the Bolshevik story, knows that Stalin’s seizure of power was due to more than his machine politics and Machiavellian cunning, important though they were to him.” - Dillon O’Leary, The Ottawa Journal “Having read Robert Tucker’s book, we now understand better, in my view, the causes of the events that we had to live through in the years of Stalinism.” - Mikhail Koriakov, Novoye Russkoye Slovo “In this book, an utterly extraordinary one in my opinion, the riddle of Stalin is at last resolved.” - Dimitry Bezrukikh, Russkaya Mysl Robert C. Tucker (1918 - 2010) was a distinguished Sovietologist at Princeton University whose Stalin biographies commanded wide attention. He was called ‘one of the greatest students of Stalin and Stalinism’ by diplomat and Russian scholar, George F. Kennan. His books are used in college classrooms across the world today.

    A fascinating mix of established master draftsmen and neophytes, working in a vast range of techniques, Illustration Now! Vol. 3 features illustrators from 30 countries, including  information about their career paths, and lists of selected exhibitions. Also included is an introduction by specialist Steven Heller on current trends in the field. This book is perfect for graphic artists, creative professionals and illustration students, as well as anyone with an appreciation for draftsmanship and visual language.

    McGinnis began his career in 1947 as a cartoonist, and produced his first cover illustrations for 1956 issues of the magazines True Detective and Master Detective. Then in 1958, he painted his first paperback book cover, and from that day forward his work was in demand.   The emergence of the “McGinnis Woman”—long-legged, intelligent, alluring, and enigmatic—established him as the go-to artist for detective novels. His work appeared on Mike Shayne titles and the Perry Mason series, and he produced 100 paintings for the Carter Brown adventures. Yet McGinnis became famous for his work in other genres as well: espionage, romance, historicals, gothics, and Westerns.   McGinnis’s first major magazine assignments were for The Saturday Evening Post, and his work has graced the pages of Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, Good Housekeeping, Guideposts, and others. McGinnis women frequently cropped up in the men’s magazines of the ’60s and ’70s.   His first movie poster was for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, with an iconic rendering of Audrey Hepburn. Almost instantly, his poster artwork could be seen everywhere—in theaters, on billboards, in newspapers, and even on soundtrack albums. His work for Hollywood became a who’s-who, with posters for James Bond, The Odd Couple, Woody Allen, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and many more.   Some of his most ambitious works have been his gallery paintings, often depicting stunning American landscapes, vast Western vistas, and of course, beautiful women. The Art of Robert E. McGinnis collection reveals the full scope and beauty of the work of a true American master—one whose legacy continues today.

    It discusses in fascinating detail howLenin's Communist party transformed the Tsarist empire, why Stalin's massive program to industrialize was coupled with one of the most horrific terror campaigns in history, and what we can expect from this erstwhile superpower in the years ahead. Based on extensive research and first-hand knowledgeof the Soviet system, it offers a lucid and stimulating analysis of the developments which first sustained, then finally undermined, the Soviet state, pinpointing all the key political developments--revolution, state-building, party rule, terror, Nazi invasion, the Cold War, and the recentelections--and examining their significance in an especially well-wrought historical context. Timely, cogent, and comprehensive, Soviet Politics helps readers make sense of developments in the former USSR since 1985, showing how and why the system fell apart. It will interest anyone wanting afuller understanding of current events, and their consequences for the world as a whole.

    Now Frank's monumental, 2500-page work has been skillfully abridged and condensed in this single, highly readable volume with a new preface by the author. Carefully preserving the original work's acclaimed narrative style and combination of biography, intellectual history, and literary criticism, Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time illuminates the writer's works--from his first novel Poor Folk to Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov--by setting them in their personal, historical, and above all ideological context. More than a biography in the usual sense, this is a cultural history of nineteenth-century Russia, providing both a rich picture of the world in which Dostoevsky lived and a major reinterpretation of his life and work.http://press.princeton.edu/titles/897...

    This book by one of Wired magazine's art directors traverses the graphic world through a collection of pie charts, bar graphs, timelines, scatter plots, and more. Super Graphic offers readers a unique look at the intricate and sometimes contradictory storylines that weave their way through comic books, and shares advice for navigating the pages of some of the most popular, longest-running, and best-loved comics and graphic novels out there. From a colorful breakdown of the DC Comics reader demographic to a witty Venn diagram of superhero comic tropes and a Chris Ware sadness scale, this book charts the most arbitrary and monumental characters, moments, and equipment of the wide world of comics.

    The nearly 200 documents -- dossiers, police reports, private letters, secret transcripts, and more -- expose the hidden inner workings of the Communist Party and the dark inhumanity of the purge process.

    Under the new authorial leadership of Alston Purvis, this authoritative book offers more than 450 new images, along with expansive coverage of such topics as Italian, Russian, and Dutch design. It reveals a saga of creative innovators, breakthrough technologies, and important design innovations.

    With characteristic critical fervor and sure-eyed insight, Hughes brings us the story of an artist whose life and work bridged the transition from the eighteenth-century reign of the old masters to the early days of the nineteenth-century moderns. With his salient passion for the artist and the art, Hughes brings Goya vividly to life through dazzling analysis of a vast breadth of his work. Building upon the historical evidence that exists, Hughes tracks Goya s development, as man and artist, without missing a beat, from the early works commissioned by the Church, through his long, productive, and tempestuous career at court, to the darkly sinister and cryptic work he did at the end of his life. In a work that is at once interpretive biography and cultural epic, Hughes grounds Goya firmly in the context of his time, taking us on a wild romp through Spanish history; from the brutality and easy violence of street life to the fiery terrors of the Holy Inquisition to the grave realities of war, Hughes shows us in vibrant detail the cultural forces that shaped Goya s work. Underlying the exhaustive, critical analysis and the rich historical background is Hughes s own intimately personal relationship to his subject. This is a book informed not only by lifelong love and study, but by his own recent experiences of mortality and death. As such this is a uniquely moving and human book; with the same relentless and fearless intelligence he has brought to every subject he has ever tackled, Hughes here transcends biography to bring us a rich and fiercely brave book about art and life, love and rage, impotence and death. This is one genius writing at full capacity about another and the result is truly spectacular.

    This collection presents fifty large-scale artworks from the American master's color field period (1949–1970) alongside essays by Rothko's son, Christopher Rothko, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art curator of painting and sculpture Janet Bishop. Featuring illuminating details about Rothko's life, influences, and legacy, and brimming with the emotional power and expressive color of his groundbreaking canvases, this essential volume brings the renowned artist's luminous work to light for both longtime Rothko fans and those discovering his work for the very first time. A textured case and large-scale tip-on on the front cover round out this sumptious package.

    What is beauty? Umberto Eco, among Italy’s finest and most important contemporary thinkers, explores the nature, the meaning, and the very history of the idea of beauty in Western culture. The profound and subtle text is lavishly illustrated with abundant examples of sublime painting and sculpture and lengthy quotations from writers and philosophers. This is the first paperback edition of History of Beauty, making this intellectual and philosophical journey with one of the world’s most acclaimed thinkers available in a more compact and affordable format.From the Trade Paperback edition

    Petersburg on October 25, 1917, the A commanding chronicle of the three Bolshevik Party stormed the capital city and turbulent years that brought the ironfisted seized the power over the Russian Provisional Soviet regime to political power. Government, which had been operating ineffectively since the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II eight months before. That October Revolution began the Russian Civil War, which in three years would cost the largest country in the world more than seven million lives.It was an apocalyptic struggle, replete with famine and pestilence, but out of the struggle a new social order would rise: The Soviet Union. Mawdsley offers a lucid, superbly detailed account of the men and events that shaped twentieth century communist Russia. He draws upon a wide range of sources to recount the military course of the war, as well as the hardship the conflict brought to a country and its people—for the victory and the reconstruction of the state under the Soviet regime came at a painfully high economic and human price.

     "History at its best." -Zbigniew Brzezinski "Gripping, well researched, and thought-provoking, with many lessons for today." -Henry Kissinger "Captures the drama [with] the 'You are there' storytelling skills of a journalist and the analytical skills of the political scientist." - General Brent Scowcroft In June 1961, Nikita Khrushchev called it "the most dangerous place on earth." He knew what he was talking about. Much has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, but the Berlin Crisis of 1961 was more decisive in shaping the Cold War-and more perilous. For the first time in history, American and Soviet fighting men and tanks stood arrayed against each other, only yards apart. One mistake, one overzealous commander-and the trip wire would be sprung for a war that would go nuclear in a heartbeat. On one side was a young, untested U.S. president still reeling from the Bay of Pigs disaster. On the other, a Soviet premier hemmed in by the Chinese, the East Germans, and hard-liners in his own government. Neither really understood the other, both tried cynically to manipulate events. And so, week by week, the dangers grew. Based on a wealth of new documents and interviews, filled with fresh- sometimes startling-insights, written with immediacy and drama, "Berlin 1961" is a masterly look at key events of the twentieth century, with powerful applications to these early years of the twenty- first.