War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today

War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today
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Not just history, but analysis and insight

War Made New

Don't Bother With This Recycled NeoCon Drivel

enjoyable, informatiive read

RMA for the masses

War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today
Max Boot
Manufacturer: Gotham
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1592402224

Book Description

A monumental, groundbreaking work of history that shows how technological and strategic revolutions have transformed the battlefield—from the Spanish Armada to the War on Terror— and how mastery of these innovations has shaped the rise and fall of nations and empires

In War Made New, acclaimed author Max Boot explores how innovations in warfare mark crucial turning points in modern history, influencing events well beyond the realm of combat. Combining gripping narrative history with wide-ranging analysis, Boot focuses on four “revolutions” in military affairs and describes key battles from each period to explain how inventions ranging from gunpowder to GPS-guided air-strikes have remade the field of battle— and shaped the rise and fall of empires.

Bringing to life battles from the defeat of the Spanish Armada to Wellington's victory at Assaye, War Made New analyzes the Gunpowder Revolution and explains warfare's evolution from ritualistic, drawn-out engagements to much deadlier events, precipitating the rise of the modern nation state. He next explores the triumph of steel and steam during the Industrial Revolution, including the British triumph at Omdurman and the climax of the Russo-Japanese war at Tsushima, showing how it powered the spread of European colonial empires. Moving into the twentieth century and the Second Industrial Revolution, Boot examines three critical clashes of World War II—the German army's blitzkrieg, Pearl Harbor, and the firebombing of Tokyo—to illustrate how new technology such as the tank, radio, and airplane ushered in terrifying new forms of warfare that aided the rise of highly centralized, and even totalitarian, world powers. Finally, in his section on the Information Revolution, Boot focuses on the Gulf War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the Iraq war, arguing that even as cutting-edge technologies such as stealth aircraft have made America the greatest military power in world history, advanced communications systems have allowed decentralized, “irregular” forces to become an increasingly significant threat to Western power. BACKCOVER: Advance Praise for War Made New
“Max Boot traces the impact of military revolutions on the course of politics and history over the past 500 years. In doing so, he shows that changes in military technology are limited not to warfighting alone, but play a decisive role in shaping our world. Sweeping and erudite, while entirely accessible to the lay reader, this work is key for anyone interested in where military revolutions have taken us—and where they might lead in the future.”
—U.S. Senator John McCain

“While much has been in written in recent years about the so-called `Revolution in Military Affairs,' Max Boot is the first scholar to place it within the broad sweep of history, and in the context of the rise of the West in world affairs since 1500. In so doing, he not only tells a remarkable tale, but he compels us all, even those obsessed solely with contemporary military affairs, to ask the right questions and to distinguish what is truly new and revolutionary from what is merely ephemeral. He has rendered a valuable service, and given us a fascinating read at the same time, so we are doubly in his debt.”
—Paul Kennedy, Professor of History at Yale University and author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

“War Made New is impressive in scope. What is equally impressive is its unique interpretation of the causal relationship between technology, warfare and the contemporary social milieu. This is a superb thinking person's book which scrutinizes conventional historical wisdom through a new lens.”
—Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, USMC (ret.), co-author of Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq

“Max Boot's book takes hundred of years of tactical battle history and reduces it to an incisive narrative of how war has changed. By providing such a coherent view of the past, he has pointed us toward the future. What is doubly impressive is how he draws surprising, fresh lessons from wars we thought we knew so much about but in fact didn't.”
—Robert D. Kaplan, author of Imperial Grunts

Customer Reviews:

Not just history, but analysis and insight.......2007-09-03

Max manages to well capture the balance between seeing the forest at the same time as the trees. Further, by extrapolation, he offers insight as to what the forest will look like in the future. I thought the book was excellent, and should be good reading for any military officer. I am a retired military officer, and have seen all the changes from the middle of the Cold War to Gulf War II. It's a completely different ball game, and Max covers it well. {To the detractors; all books have factual errors. Look to the forest, not the trees, or you miss the point of the book.)

War Made New.......2007-05-26

Absolutely excellent. Completely objective presentation. Fabulous survey of how technological and tactical changes affected western history.

Don't Bother With This Recycled NeoCon Drivel.......2007-05-08

[Update: If you are thinking about buying this book, PLEASE CONTACT ME!!!!

As a courtesy, I copied Boot on a letter to the LA Times that pointed out a series of factual errors and inconsistencies in a May 31, 2007 column he wrote about achieving "Victory" in Iraq by firing purportedly "aged" US Army Generals. (Boot's underlying premise is that there is nothing wrong with the NeoCon policies that put our troops in harm's way without enough personnel, equipment or support -- it's those "old fud" Generals who are to blame!

(I'm not making this up! That actually is Boot's theory.)

Boot responded like the Proverbial Scalded Cat, and in classic NeoCon style, e.g., claiming not to have made any mistakes; claiming that pointing out his glaring factual errors was an "ad hominem attack"; and generally displaying all of the NeoCon hubris that is getting US military personnel killed and wounded every day in Iraq.

It would be hysterically funny were it not for the fact that most people can't see through the tactics that Boot and the other NeoCons use -- including, most prominently, ignoring demonstrable facts that don't "fit" the ideological theories they are pushing.

Really, before you buy this drivel, email me and I'll send you a copy of Boot's emails. They will give you a taste of his "reasoning" and disregard for the truth.]

In my view, Max Boot is an example of the kind of NeoCon thinking that has gotten us into this generation's quamire. Boot is, basically, a liberal arts major with no military experience, and without the insights that such experience might bring.

In "War Made New," Boot "re-cycles" (a politer word than "steals") ideas have been around for years, and which have been expressed more clearly by a number of other military intellectuals and historians. Further, Boot repeatedly gets minor facts wrong, e.g., he claims that the WWII-era Supermarine Spitfire and the Hawker Hurricane were both "all-metal" fighters. (The Spitfire was; the Hurricane wasn't -- which is obvious even from pictures of the latter if you know what you are talking about.) These small discrepancies add up, and you ultimately realize that Boot is merely repeating the thoughts of others.

Boot's final/main contention, that there has been a major shift to "Information Warfare," is not borne out by the "facts on ground" in Iraq, and has never been tested in combat. The US military's new smart bomb/high technology theory of warfare has never been used against an opponent with the ability and resources to counter/exploit the obvious weak points in such systems.

To give but one example, which Boot doesn't have the knowledge or experience to discuss: Our JDAMS smart bombs work using GPS signals for guidance. Question: What happens if our opponent has the capability to jam GPS signals, or knock out the GPS satellites (a technology that China is working on)? Answer: The US is left with a pile of "dumb" bombs, and a force structure that is too small to use them. Result: We lose, despite all of our Gee Whiz weaponry.

Let's face it: NeoCons like Boot work for the military-industrial complex that sells these very expensive Wonder Weapons. He has about as much intellectual credibility as, say, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz. So save your money, and read authors who know what they are talking about.

Neil

[P.S. In candor, Boot pointed out that I originally had "Feith" as "Fife." I thanked him for pointing this error, but admitted that I had trouble telling the "NeoCon Intellectuals" apart, given that they all used the same "reasoning," e.g., "Cut The Facts To Fit The Theory."

Onward, to Victory! NEOCON INTELLECTUALS TO THE FRONT!]

enjoyable, informatiive read.......2007-05-01

I must say, I found this book interesting. I am not a military expert, but I believe his basic premises are correct. This is a journey through the effects of technological advances in warfare and the corresponding effects on society. No section is so long that it becomes boring. I found the whole thing engrossing and hard to put down. I recommend it!

RMA for the masses.......2007-04-24

A decade ago, the defense policy community was a buzz about an emerging "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA) - a discontinuous change in the nature of warfare generated by the information revolution whose potential was so clearly demonstrated by the overwhelming advantage that precision guided munitions and operational awareness conferred to US forces in the Gulf War of 1991.

Today, the increasingly low-tech, irregular nature of the current Global War on Terror and, more recently, the frustrating experience of counterinsurgency in Iraq, have seemingly diminished the importance of the RMA and discredited its most vocal proponents. This is unfair and unfortunate as the notion of periodic, major transformational change in military technology and operational capabilities is certainly sound. Moreover, it is a concept that anyone serious about military history or international affairs ought to be familiar with and consider seriously. There is no better introduction to the topic than "War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today" by Max Boot.

There are several reasons to recommend "War Made New." To begin with, author Max Boot is a superb talent and, in many ways, was the ideal person to write the first general overview of the RMA concept and a sampling of the many historical case studies that support the theory. As a long-time lead defense reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Boot possesses a sophisticated understanding of current defense policy and national security strategy. Better yet, he writes with the same engaging and lucid style of other defense journalists that have written best-selling full-length books, such as David Halberstam, Tom Ricks, and Neil Sheehan. Prior to "War Made New," the RMA had been a subject only written about by academics and policy wonks. This book should take the RMA and the classic RMA case studies to a mainstream audience.

The book is broken up into five parts. The first three parts review distinct RMAs from the past half-millennium. In "The Gunpowder Revolution" Boot covers the dramatic increase in the destructive capacity of gunpowder weapons that emerged in the late 15th century, the tactical changes developed by the Dutch and perfected by Gustavus Adolphus during the Thirty Years' War to maximize the rate of fire and overall impact of hand-held and mobile artillery firepower, and the parallel creation and stunning growth of standing professional armies throughout Europe during the period that led to the first stage of western imperialism in the 18th century. The author uses the examples of the British defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588), two major battles of the Thirty Years War (1631-32), and a less familiar episode in British India (1803) to illustrate how and why technological, doctrinal, and organizational change had profound impact not just on the course of a battle, but the outcome of war, the development of societies, and the fate of history.

The second part addresses "The First Industrial Revolution" where Boot covers engagements as diverse in time and place as the battles of Koniggratz in the Franco-Prussian War (1866), Omdurman in modern-day Sudan between the British and the native Mahdi Army (1898), and the shocking Japanese naval victory over the imperial Russian fleet at Tsushima (1905). The period between 1850 and 1914 is generally seen as the "railroad, rifle, and telegraph" RMA and Boot generally adheres to that thesis, although he stresses that the advantages conferred by early industrial technology were by no means the sole property of Western European states, a message that applies to any technological revolution that spawns an RMA.

The final historical part covers "The Second Industrial Revolution" and addresses the dramatic and non-linear changes that occurred during the interwar period in land warfare with the advent of armored warfare, at sea with the ascendancy of aircraft carriers as the new capital ship of fleet engagements, and in the air with advent of strategic bombing. The case studies that Boot writes here on the German invasion of France (1940), the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (1941), and the US air campaign against Tokyo (1945) have long been the staple of modern RMA theory.

These first three parts account for nearly three-quarters of the book. Each case study is crisply written and makes a compelling point. That said, Boot offers no radical reinterpretations of what an RMA is or in anyway fundamentally challenges the conventional wisdom that developed amongst RMA proponents during the 1990s. Many of the case studies he provides have been written about extensively before and make essentially the same arguments. Boot's main value added is the fluidity of his prose and how he ties five centuries of history into one coherent and convincing argument.

The final two parts of the book covers the present and future. The fourth part addresses "The Information Revolution" and, unlike the first three Revolutions, is entirely focused on one nation - the US victory in the First Gulf War (1991), the US invasion of Afghanistan (2002), and the US invasion of Iraq (2003). Here, Boot focuses on the conventional aspects of each engagement where US firepower and advanced technology played a decisive role in defeating enemy forces. He concedes that much of the advantages of information age weaponry has little relevance to the messy, day-to-day conduct of counter-insurgency, but spends little time pondering if and how the information RMA has any relevance to current low intensity operations around the world.

The final part offers an overview of "Revolutions to Come" and highlights the military potential of cyberwarfare, nanotechnology, robotics, and the military use of space. This section reads like grist for a science fiction book and should prompt analysts to reflect on how future technology may impact the conduct of military operations decades from now.

Despite the broad historical and technological sweep of Boot's case studies, he consistently stresses five points. First, despite the focus on technology in the subtitle and the role new technology plays in every chapter, Boot stresses that technology alone does not and cannot make an RMA. True discontinuous change is driven by the combination of new technology with new tactics and organization, thoughtful leadership, and perhaps most importantly, an efficient and effective centralized bureaucracy able to nurture and promote innovation. Second, Boot cautions that nations ignore RMAs at their peril. Every major city-state or nation-state that failed to embrace and support new military technology, doctrine, and methods have seen their relative position in the international balance of powers significantly diminished. Third, mastery of an RMA may convey distinct battlefield advantages, but ultimate victory or defeat hinges on wise political decisions and diplomacy. Fourth, the military advantages to a nation in excelling in an RMA are enormous, but history has demonstrated that it is very difficult to maintain a lead for long. Competent and resourceful competitors will learn and adapt, and are quite likely to take fuller advantage of more recent developments in technology and operations. Finally, Boot notes that the pace of innovation is speeding up. In the past, an RMA could take several centuries to completely unfold. Today, it is likely to happen in several decades.

In sum, military transformation and the RMA is a concept informed readers of history and current events ought to be well acquainted with. There are certainly many divergent, but credible and thoughtful opinions on the matter. "War Made New" is no doubt sympathetic to the RMA argument and clearly sees former secretary of defense Rumfeld's military transformation push as the correct and necessary path for present-day policymakers to pursue. Whether today's intelligence analysts and operators accept all, part, or none of the RMA concept is not nearly as important as more fully understanding the theory, the many historical examples that purport to support it, and how and why it may impact contemporary or future military operations. There is no better place to start than Max Boot's "War Made New."

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Art Made Modern
Christopher Green
Manufacturer: Merrell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1858940826

Urban Images of the Hispanic World, 1493-1793

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Urban Images of the Hispanic World, 1493-1793
Richard Kagan , and Richard L. Kagan Fernando Marias
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0300083149

Book Description

Focusing on cities and towns in South America the book investigates the different ways in which artists, map-makers , surveyors and military engineers represented a city in all its complexity. The author maintains that cities are both built structures and human communities and as a result their representations are rarely straightforward. Indeed one needs to regard these images in light of their particular purpose: administrative views contained topological accuracy; portrait views emphasized the relationship between a certain individual to the city in which she lived; other views drew attention to the human qualities believed to render an individual community unique. Kagan examines the interaction of European and native cartographic traditions as depicted in images of New and Old World cities and towns.

Made in U.S.A.: An Americanization in Modern Art, the '50s and '60s

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Made in U.S.A.: An Americanization in Modern Art, the '50s and '60s
Sidra Stich
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520057570

We Made a Garden (Modern Library Gardening)

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Great Garden, Great Book, Not So Great Marriage
A Slightly Depressing Weed Of A Book
Garden story....

We Made a Garden (Modern Library Gardening)
Margery Fish
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0375759476
Release Date: 2002-02-19

Amazon.com

Just in time for the 40th anniversary of its original publication, Margery Fish's classic gardening memoir has been published in the United States for the first time. Fish and her husband Walter, a former editor of the Daily Mail, bought a dilapidated house and two acres of limey clay in Somerset in 1937, fearing the onset of war. For the next two decades, they cultivated, pruned, and watered, with Walter providing the direction and the sense of order and Margery the flowers, the unstructured flora, and the wry observations. As in all of the best gardening books, Fish's memoir leavens technical information on gardening with memory and reflection. The book is above all the story of a marriage within the story of a landscape. Walter's lectures on the importance of structure, the distant war, the hardships of postwar England, come through slightly muted, like the outlines of buildings seen through dense foliage.

Book Description

First published in Britain in 1956 and never before available in America, We Made a Garden is the classic story of a unique and enduring English country garden. One of Britain’s most esteemed gardening writers recounts how she and her husband set about creating an exemplary cottage garden from unpromising beginnings on the site of the former farmyard and rubbish heap that surround their newly purchased home in the countryside of Somerset, England. Each imbued with a strong set of horticultural opinions and passions, Mr. and Mrs. Fish negotiate the terrain of their garden, by turns separately and together, often with humorous collisions. From the secret to cultivating the smoothest lawn to the art of lifting and replanting tulip bulbs to the landscaping possibilities of evergreens, the diverse elements of successful gardening—and delightful writing—are bound together by Mr. and Mrs. Fish’s aspiration to cultivate that most precious and slow-growing quality—the fundamental character of a good garden.

Customer Reviews:

Great Garden, Great Book, Not So Great Marriage.......2004-02-25

Margery Fish must have loved her Walter very, very much to have put up with him all those years. Her account of the garden they made despite each other is one of the great triumphs of the "garden memoir" genre, and vastly more interesting than most such works.

The book is haunted by the presence of Walter, and his likes and dislikes, and right ways and wrong ways to do anything. You can't help but feel Mrs Fish must have breathed the world's biggest sigh of relief at his passing, since it finally allowed her to get on with her gardening.

Here's a sample: Walter would smother her seedlings by putting too much manure around HIS roses, he decorated the outbuildings with bought mounted animal trophy heads (until they rotted), and he would stand guard over his wife while she planted dahlias to ensure she did so 'correctly.'

Not to be missed! (And for others in the just-as-absorbing-when-not-about-the-garden books, you must turn to Beverley Nichols and any of his brilliantly charming works about house or garden).

Note: a 3 star ranking from me is actually pretty good; I reserve 4 stars for tremendously good works, and 5 only for the rare few that are or ought to be classic; unfortunately most books published are 2 or less.

A Slightly Depressing Weed Of A Book.......2003-01-30

I wanted to like this book. I just finished the Dudley Warner Book, in the same classic gardening series, which I had savored like a good box of chocolates, rationing out a few pages, each day. But this one--oddly enough--depressed me slightly. It has a sad subplot. You have this stiff upper lip British Matron, who was married to Walter, who oppressed every good idea she had for their garden. She basically isn't able to implement her visions until he dies. But once he's dead you realize, in her humerous complaints, that she misses him. The rest is all gardening, without the breathtaking observations Charles Dudley Warner has, about plants, and without the richness of his language. Fish is an OK writer, but she's not great. I guess Charles Dudley Warner is an impossible act to follow. Warner has one chapter where General Ulysses Grant visits, then he realizes he must burn the chair he sat in. He's unbelievably funny. That book is full of life and a grand vision. Fish's book is somehow claustrophobic. Reading Warner's book, I feel like I'm in a most interesting place filled with surprises, in Fish's book I feel like I'm trapped in a garden, I'd rather exit. I've read about half of her book, and you'd have to pay me to finish it. I frown when I see it on the pile of books behind my comode.

Garden story...........2002-11-28

WE MADE A GARDEN is a lovely little book by Margery Fish, an "elderly" English lady who with her husband (he who must be obeyed or cleverly deceived it seems) moved to a country manor and converted the mostly lawn areas into gardens of shrubs, flowers, and herbs. First published in the U.K. in the 1950s, the book has been republished as part of the `Modern Library Garden Series' edited by Michael Pollan.

Fish's little book will be considered a gem by experienced gardeners who can picture the plants she names in the mind's eye, identify with her triumphs and failures, and appreciate a useful clues from an obviously seasoned hand. Garden veterans will also identify with the greedy gardener who never has enough space, the stubborn gardener who plants Nepeta despite it's runaway habits, the recalcitrant gardener who hides the verboten brilliant orange Lychnis chalcedonica at the back of the beds, and the disobedient gardener who leaves many openings in the cemented walkway hubby designed to thwart weeds.

Customer Reviews:

At last, and all together.......2002-09-07

We hear or read in the credits about the short story from which particular movie was made. But for the most part, we don't get to see these originals. Now here's an opportunity: Between the two covers of No, But I Saw The Movie.

There are 18 of these stories here, including the bases for All About Eve, High Noon, Jazz Singer, Rear Window, It Happened One Night. We can see how these tales got fleshed out for the screen versions. You can make your own judgment about the relative merits of the originals and the expansions.

I accidently came across this at a second-hand booksale. It is out of print right now, but definitely deserves to be available again.

A delightful book, full or surprises.......2001-01-29

I already knew that there were some movies that were based on short stories rather than books, but until I saw this volume, I didn't know how many popular and famous movies were actually based on stories. This book contains introductory articles as well as stories (and which movies were made with the story as basis). Its good reading for movie fans as well as people who enjoy short stories.

The Sexual Perspective: Homosexuality and Art in the Last 100 Years in the West

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As far as text books go...!

The Sexual Perspective: Homosexuality and Art in the Last 100 Years in the West
Emmanuel Cooper
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Modern | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0415111013

Book Description

First published in 1986 to wide critical accalaim, The Sexual Perspective broke new ground by bringing together and discussing the painting, sculpture and photography of artist who were lesbian/gay/queer/bisexual. The lavishingly and seductively illustrated new edition examines the increased lesbian visibility within the visual arts as well as artists' responses to the AIDS epidemic. Emmanuel Cooper places the art in its artistic, social and legal contexts, making it an impressively vital contribution to current debates about art, gender, identity and sexuality.

Customer Reviews:

As far as text books go...!.......2000-06-02

If you're ever going to buy a book just for the pictures, look no further. Not only does "The Sexual Perspective" provide an open and thorough history of homoerotic art of the last few centuries, but it continues to fascinate the reader with alternative views of conventional and popular art. As for the pictures, it's certainly not porn, but I'd advise you to keep it on the top shelf of the bookcase. This is not for grade-school eyes. As far as textbook-style reads go, it's definitely a keeper.

Dreams 1900-2000: Science, Art, and the Unconscious Mind (Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry)

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Dreams 1900-2000: Science, Art, and the Unconscious Mind (Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry)

Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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Exploring the Invisible: Art, Science, and the Spiritual

ASIN: 080143730X

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When Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, he began the modern study of a phenomenon that has fascinated human beings for thousands of years. At the same time he opened a new realm, the unconscious mind, to filmmakers and artists who were inspired by his theories. This beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated book--written to commemorate the centenary of Freud's classic work--examines the shifting roles that dreams have played in twentieth-century art and science. Over the course of the twentieth century, as scientists have researched the psychology and physiology of dreams, artists from Odilon Redon and Joan Mir to Jenny Holzer, Ingmar Bergman, and Laurie Anderson have produced dramatic images centered in the unconscious. An exploration of this artistic output, this volume features a hundred color and fifty black-and-white illustrations depicting work by a broad range of artists in painting, photography, sculpture, video, film, performance, dance, and other media. In her opening essay, Lynn Gamwell reviews the psychoanalytic understanding of dreams and explores the ways in which Freud's theories have been interpreted artistically. The next essay, by Ernest Hartmann, traces attempts to link somatic and psychological dimensions of dreaming and to discover parallels between these dimensions and creative thought. In the final essay, Donald Kuspit assesses the impact of the transition from the mystical outlook that human beings held in the nineteenth century to the twentieth-century scientific paradigm for the

human mind. A century of dreamwork is captured in this stunning volume, which concludes with a "dream archive"--an illustrated catalogue raisonn of approximately five hundred examples of twentieth-century art about dreams. Contributors Lucy Daniels, Lucy Daniels Foundation, Raleigh, N.C. Lynn Gamwell, State University of

New York, Binghamton Ernest Hartmann, M.D., Tufts University School of Medicine Donald Kuspit, State University of

Book Description

From Hogarth to Rowlandson shows how medicine and medical practitioners were portrayed by some of the artists of the eighteenth century. Medical imagery is a forceful component of eighteenth-century art and, taken as a corpus, the works of artists such as Hogarth and Rowlandson provide a lay view of some of the contemporary medical developments and of the attitudes held towards members of the medical profession. Eighteenth-century medical imagery does not only appear overtly as illustrations of medical men with their patients being purged, bled, "given a vomit" and so forth, but also appears indirectly as part of a "language" based upon symbolism, allegory and the use of emblems in a traditional manner still commonly employed in the eighteenth century. Haslam places "the art of medicine" of the eighteenth century in its social, historical and political context and shows how this, together with a knowledge of the lives of the artists themselves, is necessary for a better understanding of that art in an age in which hope was often raised by medical innovation, but all too often dashed. Among the aspects considered are: medical images in Hogarth's early satires, the innovation of vaccination, death, madness, fashion in medicine, midwifery and birth, blood-letting, the role and practice of the itinerant quack, surgery, and medicine and morality. This book provides an insight into the use of highly charged and often complicated representations of medicine and doctors in graphic and literary art. It will be of interest to social, medical and art historians as well as to general readers.

Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930

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Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930

Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 069105004X

Book Description

Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures explores complex American attitudes toward the Near East--as revealed in collected paintings, interior design, and multiple vernacular forms--at the formative moment of industrialization and the crystallization of a truly mass culture. Published to coincide with the multimedia exhibition that opens at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and travels to the Walters Art Gallery and the Mint Museum of Art, this catalogue considers how urban, mercantile, Protestant America represented the Islamic world of the Middle East and North Africa in ways that say more about itself than the foreign culture.

This gorgeously illustrated volume first looks at the use of Orientalist stereotypes by some of the country's most important high art painters of the nineteenth century: Frederic Edwin Church's treatment of the exotic terrain through a lens of deep religiosity; a more cosmopolitan reading of the harem girl by John Singer Sargent; the perfumed alternative to industrial capitalism conjured in the landscapes and market scenes of Samuel Colman and Louis Comfort Tiffany; and interpretations of the Orient as emancipatory by Ella Pell, the only major woman Orientalist. The book next traces the popularization of Orientalism in the decorative arts (including a few treasures from Olana, Church's Moorish-style home on the Hudson), on Broadway, and in Hollywood, as well as through advertising that linked consumer products with visual suggestions of exotic sexuality and through cultural objects, such as the Shriners' fez.

The generous color plates show both an innocent romanticization of the Orient and a darker, heavily eroticized version of Oriental "otherness." An excellent chronology and bibliography, in addition to expert essays by both Americanists and Islamicists, give context to absorbing images. Though a perfect companion for visitors to the exhibition, Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures is also for anyone seeking an uncommon take on the development of American self-understanding.

Exhibition Schedule:

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute
Williamstown, Massachusetts
June 11-September 4, 2000

The Walters Art Gallery
Baltimore, Maryland
October 1-December 10, 2000

The Mint Museum of Art
Charlotte, North Carolina
February 3-April 22, 2001

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