Helena Rubinstein (1870-1965) broke free from the constraints of her 19th-century, small-town Polish Jewish background to become a cosmetics industry giant and household name. She produced and marketed the means for ordinary women to transform themse...

There are currently between twenty and thirty civil wars worldwide, while at a global level the Cold War has been succeeded by a "war on drugs" and a "war on terror" that continues to rage a decade after 9/11. Why is this, when we know how destructiv...

This captivating book examines two modernist painters – Lee Krasner and Norman Lewis – whose important contributions to Abstract Expressionism have long been underappreciated. To this day, Krasner and Lewis have received little acknowledgment as majo...

Historian Michael H. Kater chronicles the rise and fall of one of Germany's most iconic cities in this fascinating and surprisingly provocative history of Weimar. Weimar was a centre of the arts during the Enlightenment and hence the cradle of German...

In this completely updated edition of Henry Kamen's classic survey of the Spanish Inquisition, he incorporates the latest research in multiple languages to offer a new – and thought-provoking – view of this fascinating period. Kamen sets the notoriou...

Human health and wellbeing is inextricably linked to nature; our connection to the natural world is part of our biological inheritance. In this engaging book, a pioneer in the field of biophilia – the study of human beings' inherent affinity for natu...

In this groundbreaking volume, based on extensive research in Chinese archives and libraries, Jan Kiely explores the pre-Communist origins of the process of systematic thought reform or reformation (ganhua) that evolved into a key component of Mao Ze...

Mel Bochner (b 1940) is celebrated as a key Conceptual artist of the 1960s. Less well-known are his paintings made after that period: complex works based on an exploration of language, often crowded with typography in lush, contrasting hues that both...

Art from Oceania, the region encompassing the islands of the central and south Pacific, spans hundreds of distinct artistic processes, formats and mediums. Many people's exposure to Oceanic art comes through its influence on the work of European arti...

Charles James, often considered to be America's first couturier, was renowned in the 1940s and 1950s as a master at sculpting fabric for the female form and creating fashions that defined mid-century glamour. Although James had no formal training as...