In About Looking he explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see. How do the animals we look at in zoos remind us of a relationship between man and beast all but lost in the twentieth century? What is it about looking at war photographs that doubles their already potent violence? How do the nudes of Rodin betray the threats to his authority and potency posed by clay and flesh? And how does solitude inform the art of Giacometti? In asking these and other questions, Berger quietly -- but fundamentally -- alters the vision of anyone who reads his work.

    Eros and Magic in the Renaissance challenges this view, providing an in-depth scholarly explanation of the workings of magic and showing that magic continues to exist in an altered form even today.Renaissance magic, according to Ioan Couliano, was a scientifically plausible attempt to manipulate individuals and groups based on a knowledge of motivations, particularly erotic motivations. Its key principle was that everyone (and in a sense everything) could be influenced by appeal to sexual desire. In addition, the magician relied on a profound knowledge of the art of memory to manipulate the imaginations of his subjects. In these respects, Couliano suggests, magic is the precursor of the modern psychological and sociological sciences, and the magician is the distant ancestor of the psychoanalyst and the advertising and publicity agent.In the course of his study, Couliano examines in detail the ideas of such writers as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola and illuminates many aspects of Renaissance culture, including heresy, medicine, astrology, alchemy, courtly love, the influence of classical mythology, and even the role of fashion in clothing.Just as science gives the present age its ruling myth, so magic gave a ruling myth to the Renaissance. Because magic relied upon the use of images, and images were repressed and banned in the Reformation and subsequent history, magic was replaced by exact science and modern technology and eventually forgotten. Couliano's remarkable scholarship helps us to recover much of its original significance and will interest a wide audience in the humanities and social sciences.

    Featuring brutally compassionate photographs taken from 1990-99, inspired by an overwhelming belief in the human possibility of change, this volume is a definitive selection from Nachtwey's astonishing portfolio. It documents today's conflicts and their victims, from Somalia's famine to genocide in Rwanda, from Romania's abandoned orphans and 'irrecoverables' to the lives of India's 'untouchables', from war in Bosnia to conflict in Chechnya. Inferno is an evocative visual insight into modern history, bringing it disturbingly close to our consciousness.

    Athens had entered upon her brief and magnificent flowering of genius which so molded the world of mind and of spirit that our mind and spirit today are different... What was then produced of art and of thought has never been surpasses and very rarely equalled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western world."A perennial favorite in many different editions, Edith Hamilton's best-selling The Greek Way captures the spirit and achievements of Greece in the fifth century B.C. A retired headmistress when she began her writing career in the 1930s, Hamilton immediately demonstrated a remarkable ability to bring the world of ancient Greece to life, introducing that world to the twentieth century. The New York Times called The Greek Way a "book of both cultural and critical importance."

    The photos are somewhere between documentary and romanticism. Where he could have taken straight documentary photos of poverty and tattered Western/white clothing, he instead staged warrior meetings on horseback and the like.

    Tramping through China by train, bus, boat, motorcycle, mule or hitching on the back of anything that moved. On a budget so scant that he drew sympathetic stares from peasants. Backpacking photographer Tom Carter somehow succeeded in circumnavigating over 35,000 miles (56,000 kilometers) across all 33 provinces in China during a 2-year period, the first foreigner on record ever to do so.What Carter found along the way, and what his photographs ultimately reveal, is that China is not just one place one people, but 33 distinct geographical regions populated by 56 different ethnicities, each with their own languages, customs and lifestyles.Despite increased tourism and surging foreign investment, the cultural distances between China and the West remain as vast as the oceans that separate them. Carter's book, CHINA: Portrait of a People, was published as a means to visually introduce China to the world by providing a glimpse into the daily lives of the ordinary people who don't make international headlines yet whom are invariably the heart and soul of this country.MEDIA REVIEWS"One of China's most extraordinary explorers." --The World of Chinese"Part of the strength of this book is its independent spirit. It's not a travel guide showing China dressed in its Sunday best, or a photojournalistic approach documenting the underbelly of the country, but rather a peek at the sights Carter has seen and a corrective to both the glowing promotional images and negative media shots that we are all familiar with." -- China Daily"Tom Carter is an extraordinary photographer whose powerful work captures the heart and soul of the Chinese people." -- Anchee Min, author of Red Azalea"Tom Carter's photo book is an honest and objective record of the Chinese and our way of life... his camera leads us through 33 wide-sweeping scenes of the real and the surreal." -- Mian Mian, author of Candy"Capturing the diversity of [China's] 56 ethnic groups is a remarkable achievement ... There are a number of shots in this book that could easily grace the pages of National Geographic ... Unless you want to undertake your own two-year trek through some of the mainland's most difficult terrain to take your own shots, this is a study well worth having on your bookshelf." -- South China Morning Post"In these 900 images, Carter shows just how diverse the Chinese really are, with their different facial features, skin hues, lifestyles, cultures and occupations. What ensues is an engaging and enlightening photo essay of 1.3 billion people." -- Asian Geographic Passport"A striking, kaleidoscopic vision of China's lands and people." -- The Beijinger"Through Carter's journey of self-discovery, we end up discovering a little more about ourselves -- and a land so vast, so disparate, that 638 pages of photos barely manage to scratch the surface. Still, CHINA: Portrait of a People is a very good place to start peeling back the layers." -- Time Out Hong Kong"Travel photos taken by a stranger seldom fascinate. But 800 color images captured by Tom Carter as he spent two years on the road, traveling 56,000 kilometers through all of China's 33 provinces, make a dramatic exception ... Carter's weighty book takes an effort to carry home from a store. But anyone interested in China should love owning it." -- Cairns Media Magazine"Getting a full picture of China - a vast country with an enormous population, a place that is experiencing sweeping cultural and economic changes - is, of course, impossible. But Tom Carter comes close. ... It's a remarkable book, compact yet bursting with images that display the diversity of a nation of 56 ethnic groups." -- San Francisco Chronicle"In China: Portrait of a People, Tom Carter shows us that there are actually dozens of Chinas. The American photojournalist spent two years traveling 35,000 miles through every province of China by bus, boat, train, mule, motorcycle, and on foot." -- Christian Science Monitor

    Martin brings alive Greek civilization from its Stone Age roots to the fourth century B.C. Focusing on the development of the Greek city-state and the society, culture, and architecture of Athens in its Golden Age, Martin integrates political, military, social, and cultural history in a book that will appeal to students and general readers alike. This edition has been updated with new suggested readings and illustrations. "[A] highly accessible, and comprehensive history of Greece and its civilization from prehistory through the collapse of Alexander the Great's empire. ...A highly readable account of ancient Greece, particularly useful as an introductory or review text for the student of the general reader." --Kirkus Reviews "Photographs and maps enhance this solid first lesson about the ancients." --Booklist

    The photographs are accompanied by a selection of Curtis's texts.

    Declared unfit for human habitation, the Zones of Exclusion includes the towns of Pripyat (established in the 1970s to house workers) and Chernobyl. In May 2001, Robert Polidori photographed what was left behind in the this dead zone. His richly detailed images move from the burned-out control room of Reactor 4, where technicians staged the experiment that caused the disaster, to the unfinished apartment complexes, ransacked schools and abandoned nurseries that remain as evidence of those who once called Pripyat home. Nearby, trucks and tanks used in the cleanup efforts rest in an auto graveyard, some covered in lead shrouds and others robbed of parts. Houseboats and barges rust in the contaminated waters of the Pripyat River. Foliage grows over the sidewalks and hides the modest homes of Chernobyl. In his large-scale photographs, Polidori captures the faded colors and desolate atmosphere of these two towns, producing haunting documents that present the reader with a rare view of not just a disastrous event, but a place and the people who lived there.

    The sense of private mystery that fills these photographs--mostly taken during Koudelka's many years of wandering through Europe and Great Britain since leaving his native Czechoslovakia in 1968--speaks of passion and reserve, of his rage to see. Solitary, moving, deeply felt and strangely disturbing, the images in Exiles suggest alienation, disconnection and love. Exiles evokes some of the most compelling and troubling themes of the twentieth century, while resonating with equal force in this current moment of profound migrations and transience.Josef Koudelka (born 1938) has published ten books of photographs, many of which focus on the relationship between man and the landscape, including Gypsies (1975; revised and enlarged edition in 2011), Exiles (1988), Black Triangle (1994), Invasion 68: Prague (2008) and Wall (2013). Significant exhibitions of his work have been held at The Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography, both in New York; Hayward Gallery, London; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Koudelka is the recipient of the Medal of Merit awarded by the Czech Republic (2002) and numerous other awards. In 2012, he was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. He is based in Paris and Prague.

    He tells of the Nazi cult of the primeval German forest; the play of Christian and pagan myth in Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers; and the duel between a monumental sculptor and a feminist gadfly on the slopes of Mount Rushmore. The result is a triumphant work of history, naturalism, mythology, and art. "A work of great ambition and enormous intellectual scope...consistently provocative and revealing."--New York Times"Extraordinary...a summary cannot convey the riches of this book. It will absorb, instruct, and fascinate."--New York Review of Books

    His aim is to account for the evolution of cultural forms as Darwin accounted for the evolution of biological forms: to show how cultures adopt their characteristic forms in response to changing ecological modes."[A] magisterial interpretation of the rise and fall of human cultures and societies."-- Robert Lekachman, Washington Post Book World"Its persuasive arguments asserting the primacy of cultural rather than genetic or psychological factors in human life deserve the widest possible audience."-- Gloria Levitas The New Leader"[An] original and...urgent theory about the nature of man and at the reason that human cultures take so many diverse shapes."-- The New Yorker"Lively and controversial."-- I. Bernard Cohen, front page, The New York Times Book Review

    Award-winning photographer Mark Edward Harris has had rare access to this reclusive country, traveling within its borders as well as documenting life along its northern border with China and the highly militarized DMZ dividing North and South Korea. His images are amazing: the monumental architecture and empty streets of the capital; tightly controlled zones of economic and tourist trade with South Korea; mass games featuring 100,000 choreographed participants. Short essays, extended captions, and a foreword by North Korea expert Bruce Cumings further illuminate a country increasingly at the center of international politics.

    Only in the light of this knowledge, the author points out, can an intelligent Indian policy be formulated.In the book are described the first meetings of Indians with explorers, the dispossession of the Indians by colonial expansion, their involvement in imperial rivalries, their beginning relations with the new American republic, and the ensuing century of war and encroachment.The most recent aspects of government Indian policy are also detailed the good and bad administrative practices and measures to which the Indians have been subjected and their present situation.Miss Debo's style is objective, and throughout the book the distinct social environment of the Indians is emphasized—an environment that is foreign to the experience of most white men. Through ignorance of that culture and life style the results of non-Indian policy toward Indians have been centuries of blundering and tragedy.In response to Indian history, an enlightened policy must be formulated: protection of Indian land, vocational and educational training, voluntary relocation, encouragement of tribal organization, recognition of Indians' social groupings, and reliance on Indians' abilities to direct their own lives.The result of this new policy would be a chance for Indians to live now, whether on their own land or as adjusted members of white society. Indian history is usually highly specialized and is never recorded in books of general history. This book unifies the many specialized volumes which have been written about their history and culture. It has been written not only for persons who work with Indians or for students of Indian culture, but for all Americans of good will.

    Maya, their gifted architect, had created for them three cities fortified with iron, silver and gold and the great lord Brahma himself had decreed that these cities would be indestructible, unless struck by a single arrow. The three cities, known together as Tripura, orbited the earth and only once in a thousand years fell in a straight line, directly one above the other. Would Shiva be waiting to destroy them with a twang of his deadly bow?