culture

Softcover. Costa Mesa CA, Mazda Publishers, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 134 pages. The history of Iran is a subject attracting increasing interest, and in it the history of the Qajar period, here dated 1796-1925, occupies a pivotal transitional place. The Qajar rulers reunited Iran after a century of weakness and division, and helped create modern Iran and its response to western power. Although the Qajars were not great reformers, their period saw the development of many new trends of thought, ranging from new religious ideas and groups to the adapting of modern ideas to Iranian circumstances. This book covers intellectual trends and equally it covers the political and socioeconomic history of Iran, including the growth of western incursions and control, which led to social, economic, and political disruptions and helped lead to a major revolution that gave Iran a modern constitution. Later developments culminated in a modernizing central government under the Pahlavi shahs. The period 1796-1925 saw a flowering of Iran's visual arts, politically oriented literature, popular culture, and crafts and carpets, and the beginnings of photography and film. The book interprets all these developments as part of a readable and comprehensible history of a period that helped bring Iran into the modern world while continuing its cultural greatness. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, W W Norton & Co, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 608 pages. A startling anecdotal history of gay life in twentieth-century New York explores the confluence of historical and social factors that made Manhattan a mecca for homosexuals in the second half of this century.

Hardcover. Oxford UK, Clarendon Press, 1st, 1923, Book: Very Good, Hardcover, red cloth, 296 pages. Gilt title on spine. Folding maps in rear. Contents: Relation of Bantu to other African races: Africa & Africans - Study of Bantu life & thought: Spirits of things; Spirits of people; Tribal law & politics; Woman & marriage; Training of Bantu youths - Europeanization of Bantu Africa: Discovery of Bantu; White man's burden & how he got it; Some problems of government in Bantu areas; Native labour; Colour bar; Task of Church. Newsp. clippings re author laid in, leaving tan mark.

Softcover. NY, Rizzoli, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 160 pages, illustrated in color. Celebrating the culture and design of the railroad from its beginnings in the Industrial Revolution through its 20th-century heyday, Railroad is a loving tribute to the unique aesthetic of trains. With hundreds of archival and contemporary photographs, it examines the glamorous early days, when train travel meant sumptuous, luxurious interiors with formal black-tie dining cars and private sleeping-suite cabins, up to the present with the sleek, streamlined design and record-breaking speeds of modern trains around the globe. Touching on every aspect of railroad design, from the interiors and exteriors of the trains, to railroad stations, signage, and trestles and tunnels, Railroad also abounds in such train ephemera as tickets, conductor uniforms, timetables, and advertisements, and is sprinkled with trivia and anecdotes illuminating railroading's colorful history. As both harbinger of modern engineering and nostalgic symbol of an earlier age, the railroad continues to exert a fascination over all those interested in travel, engineering, and design. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Paris, Arthaud, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 32 pages of French text followed by full color photographs of the people and culture of the Rajasthan region of India. Light edge wear to dust jacket. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Rizzoli, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. This special volume presents a visual timeline of Ralph Lauren's remarkable history as a lifestyle innovator. Lauren's unparalleled ability to seamlessly blend fashion and the home is illustrated with the groundbreaking designs and innovative use of materials that have distinguished the home collection since its inception in 1983: menswear-inspired Oxford Cloth bedding that required the creation of special looms and took two years to refine; the sleek RL-CF1 chair, crafted of carbon fiber and inspired by Lauren's McLaren F1 racecar; and an appreciation for a timeworn, weathered aesthetic, as exemplified in the iconic Writer's Chair with its hand-burnished leather and rich patina. Historic achievements such as the opening of his first New York City flagship on Madison Avenue - which invited guests to experience the complete World of Ralph Lauren in a residential environment - and his renowned restaurants that offer the epitome of gracious hospitality, demonstrate the magnitude of Ralph Lauren's influence on the worlds of lifestyle design and hospitality. The timeline is complete with quotes from distinguished members of the design world and prominent figures of our culture including Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and architecture critic Paul Goldberger. Ralph Lauren's signature ability to create transportive environments begins with his private homes that inspire his iconic lifestyle collections. Ralph Lauren: A Way of Living offers an in-depth look at all the places Lauren calls home, from a sprawling ranch in Colorado and an island retreat in Jamaica, to a Fifth Avenue penthouse overlooking Manhattan's Central Park, a seaside home in Montauk and a country estate in Bedford. Lauren's homes are deeply personal expressions of his vision for living; captivating imagery is complemented by essays and descriptions written in his own words that intimately express the meaning of home and share inspiration and anecdotes for each residence. The photos of Lauren's captivating homes are followed by a celebration of Ralph Lauren Home's lifestyle collections - cinematic worlds that are brought to life with iconic imagery showcasing Lauren's pioneering lifestyle approach and all-encompassing home collection. DUE TO WEIGHT. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, PA, George W. Jacobs & Company, 1st Edition, 1924, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, 334 pages. Hardcover. Color frontispiece and b/w illustrations throughout. Previous owner's bookplate, stamp, and pencil markings on front endpapers. Some pages untrimmed. Blue leather cover boards, gilt title on spine and front cover boards with two color decoration. Boards are excellent. Dust jacket has agewear, but present. binding very good. Pages and edges have some tanning. Top edge dyed. Dr. Gordon brings an artist's eye as well as the knowledge of a historian to the beautiful city of London and her historic landmarks.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, PA, J. M. Stoddart & Co., 1st, 1878, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 326 pages. Hardcover. Scarce, early Frost work. Decorated endpapers. B/w illustrations throughout. Back endpapers have a mended rip at gutter. Cover boards bound in orange. Covers have some age wear. Pages are age-yellowed with a touch of foxing in places. Does not affect text or illustrations. In very good shape for its age.

Hardcover. New York, NYUP, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 303 pages. Hardcover. 246 black & white illustrations, 6 in color. Light wear to dust jacket at corners, edges. Clean, tight copy. Raphael (The Wrightsman Lectures, Delivered Under the Auspices of the New York University Institute of Fine Arts) [Oct 01, 1979].

Hardcover. New York, New York University Press, 1st Edition, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 303 pages. Hardcover. 246 illustrations in black & white. 6 full page, full color illustrations. Red cloth covers with gilt titles to spine. Bright dust jacket with tears to edges. Clean, unmarked copy.

Softcover. London/NY, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 288 pages. An accessible and visually rich study of Japanese photography since 1945 by an experienced curator specializing in Japanese art and culture. From the severity of post-war Realism to the diversity and technical ingenuity of the present, via movements and groups such as Vivo in the 1960s and 'girls' photography' in the 1990s, this visually bold and richly volume traces the development of Japanese photography since 1945. Interleaved are new interviews with some of the most influential practitioners in photographic history, from Moriyama Daido to Araki Nobuyoshi and Kawauchi Rinko. Lena Fritsch writes with imagination and clarity, interrogating a cross-section of photographic movements and works against the vivid, shifting backdrop of Japanese social, cultural and political history. The result is both an accessible introduction and an illuminating work of analysis for general readers and aficionados alike.

Hardcover. London, Phaidon, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 240 pages. Hardcover. Profusely illustrated in full color. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Hatje Cantz, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover with illustrated boards, 212 pages. Since the late 1970s, as a pioneer of Southern California underground culture, Raymond Pettibon has blurred the boundaries of "high" and "low," from the deviations of marginal youth to art history, literature, sports, religion, politics and sexuality. Rich in detail, his obsessively worked drawings pull freely from myriad sources spanning the cultural spectrum. The resulting, highly poetic constructions function as acute reflections of contemporary society. Throughout the years, his subjects have included political figures and historical events, with particular intensity since the events of September 11, 2001. Seen here are images of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, J. Edgar Hoover, both Bush presidents, the Kennedys, Hitler, scenes from the Vietnam War and protest movements, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the prisoner abuse of Abu Ghraib, President Obama and Osama bin Laden. Raymond Pettibon (born 1957) studied economics at UCLA around the same time he joined his brother in the punk band Black Flag. He soon began to contribute artwork to album covers, flyers and t-shirts, for the band and its label, SST Records, and exhibited his work in group shows in galleries in the 1980s. Since the 1990s his work has been the subject of numerous major solo exhibitions.

Hardcover. UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 251 pages. In a unique application of critical theory to the study of the role of ideology in politics, Jeffrey Herf explores the paradox inherent in the German fascists' rejection of the rationalism of the Enlightenment while fully embracing modern technology. He documents evidence of a cultural tradition he calls 'reactionary modernism' found in the writings of German engineers and of the major intellectuals of the. Weimar right: Ernst Juenger, Oswald Spengler, Werner Sombart, Hans Freyer, Carl Schmitt, and Martin Heidegger. The book shows how German nationalism and later National Socialism created what Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, called the 'steel-like romanticism of the twentieth century'. By associating technology with the Germans, rather than the Jews, with beautiful form rather than the formlessness of the market, and with a strong state rather than a predominance of economic values and institutions, these right-wing intellectuals reconciled Germany's strength with its romantic soul and national identity. Light pencil underlining to some pages, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Surrey UK, Ashgate Publishing, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 165 pages. Author Leah Knight explores the physical and figurative potentials of green as they were understood in Renaissance England, including some that foreshadow our paradoxical dependence on and sacrifice of the green world. Ranging across contexts from early modern optics and olfaction to horticulture and herbal health care, this study explores a host of human encounters with the green world: both the impressions we make upon it and those it leaves with us. B&w, color illustrations.

Hardcover. Seattle, WA, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 256 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Black and white pictures throughout. Founded by Paul Krassner, "The Realist" was a satirical magazine that took aim at American culture during the period of 1958 to 2001. Paul Krassner collaborates with Fantagraphics to create a collection of the best of "The Realist" drawings with contributions by R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, S. Clay Wilson, Jay Lynch, Wallace Wood and others. Illustrated front board, 291 pages plus annotations, black/white and 2-color images. Volume numbers and year published accompanies each cartoon.

Hardcover. New York, Knopf, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 219 pages. Clean, bright copy. "I doubt very much that I'm the only person who's finding it more and more difficult to want to read or write novels," David Shields acknowledges in Reality Hunger, then seeks to understand how the conventional literary novel has become as lifeless a form as the mass market bodice-ripper. Shields provides an ars poetica for writers and other artists who, exhausted by the artificiality of our culture, "obsessed by real events because we experience hardly any," are taking larger and larger pieces of the real world and using them in their work. Reality Hunger is made of 600-odd numbered fragments, many of them quotations from other sources, some from Shields's own books, but none properly sourced--the project being not a treasure hunt or a con but a good-faith presentation of what literature might look like if it caught up to contemporary strategies and devices used in the other arts, and allowed for samples (that is, quotation from art and from the world) to revivify existing forms. Shields challenges the perceived superiority of the imagination and exposes conventional literary pieties as imitation writing, the textual equivalent of artificial flavoring, sleepwalking, and small talk. I can't name a more necessary or a more thrilling book.

Softcover. New York, Universe, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 143 pages, illustrated throughout in color. Clean, unmarked copy in excellent condition. The chapters cover: jeans & pants; T-shirts & hoodies; shirts & blouses; jackets; formal wear; dresses & skirts; footwear; accessories; hair, makeup & body art; David Bowie.

Softcover. New Brunswick NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1st pbk., 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 372 pages. The first set of essays seeks to analyze the patriarchal discourses of a colonial society and includes an analysis of the shaping of Hindu-Aryan identity, the parameters of the discourse on widow-immolation, the "defeminization" of popular culture in nineteenth-century urban Calcutta, the nature of the reforms proposed by early women's journals in Hindi, and the implications of the nationalist movement and of Indo-Anglian literature on middle-class patriarchal norms. The second set of articles relates to women of the productive classes--the reconstitution of patriarchies in the agrarian transition in Haryana, in the Oudh peasant movement, in the armed peasant struggle in Telangana, and among the working class in Bengal. The contributors explore the interrelation of patriarchies with political economy, law, religion, and culture, and suggest a different history of "reform" movements, and of class and gender relations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. The Siamanto Press, Reprint, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 438 pages. Hardcover. B/w illustrations throughout. Purple endpapers. Dust jacket unclipped, excellent. Black cover boards, white title on spine. Very good condition, just one small spot on bottom edge. Pages clean, binding tight, spine straight.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 234 pages with index. A work of refreshing originality and vivid appeal, Red Arctic tells the story of Stalinist Russia's massive campaign to explore and develop its Northern territories during the 1930s. Author John McCannon recounts the dramatic stories of the polar expeditions--conducted by foot, ship, and plane--that were the pride of Stalinist Russia, in order to expose the reality behind them: chaotic blunders, bureaucratic competition, and the eventual rise of the Gulag as the dominant force in the North. Red Arctic also traces the development of the polar-based popular culture of the decade, making use of memoirs, films, radio broadcasts, children's books, and cultural ephemera ranging from placards to postage stamps to show how Russia's "Arctic Myth" became an integral part of the overall socialist-realist aesthetic that animated Stalinist culture throughout the 1930s. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, powerHouse Books, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 256 pages. Sylvia Plachy, a photographer for the Village Voice, and James Ridgeway, a reporter for the same publication, have delved into the depths of the pornography trade to explore and explain both its allure and its vulgarity. There is a sense of shock value in exposing the most lurid of fantasies--a man who has his dominatrix mummify him in concrete--that is tempered with theories as to how such an industry could have evolved. We also get to meet for ourselves those in the trade, providing a walk on the wild side within the safe confines of photographs and words.

Hardcover. London, Tate Publishing, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, pictorial boards with an acetate dust wrapper, 304 pages. Warhol brought to the art world a unique awareness of the relationship that art might have with popular consumer culture and tabloid news, with celebrity, and with sexuality. Each of these themes is explored through visual dialogues between warhol and some sixty artists, among them John Baldessari, Vija Celmins, Gilbert & George, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Damien Hirst, Alfredo Jaar, Deborah Kass, Alex Katz, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Vik Muniz, Takashi Murakami, Bruce Nauman, Cady Noland, Elizabeth Peyton, Sigmar Polke, Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman and Luc Tuymans. Clean copy. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. London, Macmillan, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth stamped in gilt, 407 pages. Chapters include: Myth and Ritual, Religion and Healing, Witchcraft and Sorcery, 20th Century Theories of Religion, The Science of Religion and others. Owner's small sticker inside front cover otherwise clean.