University of Chicago Press: New Titles from 'Reaktion Books'

Herbs

Gary Allen — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Salsa and guacamole wouldn’t be the same without cilantro, and you can’t make pizza without oregano or a mojito without mint. You can use peppermint to settle an upset stomach, ease arthritis pain with stinging nettle, and heal burns and wounds with aloe vera. And then there is cannabis—perhaps the most notorious and divisive herb of all. Despite the fact that herbs are often little more than weeds, cultures around the globe have found hundreds of uses for them, employing them in everything from ancient medicines to savory dishes. While much has been written on cooking and healing with herbs, little has been told about the history of the plants themselves and the incredible journeys they have made.

This book elucidates how these often overlooked plants have become a staple in our lives. Unlike spices that quickly traversed the globe through trade, Gary Allen shows that herbs were often hoarded by their cultivators and were central to distinctive regional dishes. He draws on his extensive knowledge of food history to examine herbs in new ways, making Herbs essential reading for any serious foodie. Filled with beautiful illustrations and delicious recipes, this book will complete the kitchen library.

Rum

Richard Foss — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” A favorite of pirates, the molasses-colored liquid brings to mind clear blue seas, weather-beaten sailors, and port cities filled with bar wenches. But enjoyment of rum spread far beyond the scallywags of the Caribbean—Charles Dickens savored it in punch, Thomas Jefferson mixed it into omelets, Queen Victoria sipped it in navy grog, and the Kamehameha Kings of Hawaii drank it straight up. In Rum,Richard Foss tells the colorful, secret history of a spirit that not only helped spark the American Revolution but was even used as currency in Australia.

This book chronicles the five-hundred-year evolution of rum from a raw spirit concocted for slaves to a beverage savored by connoisseurs. Charting the drink’s history, Foss shows how rum left its mark on religious rituals—it remains a sacramental offering among voodoo worshippers—and became part of popular songs and other cultural landmarks. He also includes recipes for sweet and savory rum dishes and obscure drinks, as well as illustrations of rum memorabilia from its earliest days to the tiki craze of the 1950s. Fast-paced and well written, Rum will delight any fan of mojitos and mai tais.

Mongol Conquests in World History

Timothy May — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

The Mongol Empire can be seen as marking the beginning of the modern age, and of globalization as well. While communications between the extremes of Eurasia existed prior to the Mongols, they were infrequent and often through intermediaries. As this new book by Timothy May shows, the rise of the Mongol Empire changed everything—through their conquests the Mongols swept away dozens of empires and kingdoms and replaced them with the largest contiguous empire in history.

While the Mongols were an extremely destructive force in the premodern world, the Mongol Empire had stabilizing effects on the social, cultural and economic life of the inhabitants of the vast territory, allowing merchants and missionaries to transverse Eurasia. The Mongol Conquests in World History examines the many ways in which the conquests were a catalyst for change, including changes and advancements in warfare, food, culture, and scientific knowledge. Even as Mongol power declined, the memory of the Empire fired the collective imagination of the region into far-reaching endeavors, such as the desire for luxury goods and spices that launched Columbus’s voyage and the innovations in art that were manifested in the masterpieces of the Renaissance.

This fascinating book offers comprehensive coverage of the entire empire, rather than a more regional approach, and provides an extensive survey of the legacy of the Mongol Empire.

Vodka

Patricia Herlihy — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Vodka is the most versatile of spirits. While people in Eastern Europe and the Baltic often drink it neat, swallowing it in one gulp, others use it in cocktails and mixed drinks—bloody marys, screwdrivers, white russians, and Jell-O shots—or mix it with tonic water or ginger beer to create a refreshing drink. Vodka manufacturers even infuse it with flavors ranging from lemon and strawberry to chocolate, bubble gum, and bacon. Created by distilling fermented grains, potatoes, beets, or other vegetables, this colorless, tasteless, and odorless liquor has been enjoyed by both the rich and the poor throughout its existence, but it has also endured many obstacles along its way to global popularity.

In this book, Patricia Herlihy takes us for a ride through vodka’s history, from its mysterious origins in a Slavic country in the fourteenth century to its current transatlantic reign over Europe and North America. She reveals how it continued to flourish despite hurdles like American Prohibition and being banned in Russia on the eve of World War I. On its way to global domination, vodka became ingrained in Eastern European culture, especially in Russia, where standards in vodka production were first set. Illustrated with photographs, paintings, and graphic art, Vodka will catch the eye of any reader intrigued by how “potato juice” became an international industry.

Gin

Lesley Jacobs Solmonson — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Mother’s Milk, Mother’s Ruin, and Ladies’ Delight. Dutch Courage and Cuckold’s Comfort. These evocative nicknames for gin hint that it has a far livelier history than the simple and classic martini would lead you to believe. In this book, Lesley Jacobs Solmonson journeys into gin’s past, revealing that this spirit has played the role of both hero and villain throughout history.

Taking us back to gin’s origins as a medicine derived from the aromatic juniper berry, Solmonson describes how the Dutch recognized the berry’s alcoholic possibilities and distilled it into the whiskey-like genever. She then follows the drink to Britain, where cheap imitations laced with turpentine and other caustic fillers made it the drink of choice for poor eighteenth-century Londoners. Eventually replaced by the sweetened Old Tom style and later by London Dry gin, its popularity spread along with the British Empire. As people today once again embrace classic cocktails like the gimlet and the negroni, gin has reclaimed its place in the world of mixology. Featuring many enticing recipes, Gin is the perfect gift for cocktail aficionados and anyone who wants to know whether it should be shaken or stirred.

Nazi, the Painter and the Forgotten Story of the SS Road

G. H. Bennett — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

In 2006 a long-forgotten canister of film was discovered in a church in Devon, a county located in the southwestern corner of the United Kingdom. No one knew how it had gotten there, but its contents were tantalizing—the grainy black and white footage showed members of the German SS and police building a road in Ukraine and Crimea in 1943. The BBC caused a sensation when it aired the footage, but the film gave few clues to the protagonists or their task.

World War II historian G. H. Bennett pieces together the story of the film and its principal characters in The Nazi, the Painter and the Forgotten Story of the SS Road. In his search for answers, Bennett unearthed an overlooked chapter of the Holocaust: a wartime German road-building project led by Walter Gieseke, the Nazi policeman who ended up running the SS task force, that served the dual purpose of exterminating Jewish and other lives while laying the infrastructure for a utopian Nazi haven in the Ukraine. Bennett tells the story of the road and its builders through the experiences of Arnold Daghani, a Romanian artist who was one of the few Jewish laborers to survive the project. Daghani describes the brutal treatment he endured, as well as the beating, torture, and murder of his fellow laborers by the Nazis, and his postwar efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Recovering an important but lost episode in the history of World War II and the Holocaust, The Nazi, the Painter and the Forgotten Story of the SS Road is a moving and at times horrifying chronicle of suffering, deprivation, and survival.

Olympic Visions

Mike O'Mahony — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

African American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos protesting racial segregation in the United States in 1968. Hitler watching the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Michael Phelps’ photo finish in the 100-meter butterfly to win his seventh of a record eight medals in 2008. Since its creation in 1896, the Olympic Games have produced iconic images such as these, from the second the Olympic flame is lit at the lavish opening ceremony to the moment that same flame is extinguished at its close. As billions across the globe watch this showcase of fitness, strength, and skill, few understand how the pictorial legacy of the Games continues to shape the way the events are viewed today.

Olympic Visions explores how painters and sculptors, photographers and filmmakers, and architects and designers have helped to affect the consciousness of spectators around the world. Mike O’Mahony describes and analyzes images such as documentary photographs and posters made of the Olympics throughout history. He also looks at the many special objects, including coins, medals, and sculptures, that have been made to commemorate the games. His detailed insights into the world of Olympic artifacts, combined with the beautiful illustrations included here, present a crucial addition to our understanding of the games and the way we watch them.

With the next Olympic Games beginning in London in July, Olympic Visions will be an essential companion to viewers tuning in to cheer on their national teams to triumph and glory.

History of Myanmar since Ancient Times

Michael Aung-Thwin; Maitrii Aung-Thwin — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

The Republic of the Union of Myanmar is often characterized as a place of repressive military rule, civil war, censorship, and corrupt elections—and despite recent attempts to promote tourism to see the country’s natural beauty, it is not yet a travel hotspot. Most of the Western world remains unaware of the storied history and rich culture found in this Southeast Asian country.

In A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times, Michael Aung-Thwin and Maitrii Aung-Thwin take us from the sacred stupas (structures containing Buddhist relics) of the plains of Bagan to the grand, colonial-era British mansions, finding the splendor that remains in this forgotten country. They delve into Myanmar’s nearly three-thousand-year history, discovering the first traces of civilization that appeared during the Stone Age, witnessing the protests of Buddhist monks during the early twentieth century, and describing the colonial era of British rule and the republic that followed. This book also considers the state of Myanmar today, examining the 2010 elections—the first in over twenty years—and exploring the lives, culture, and ambitions of the Burmese people. The most comprehensive history of Myanmar ever published in the English language, this book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Southeast Asia.

Artists' Postcards

Jeremy Cooper — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Over the last twenty years an increasing number of artists have turned to expressing themselves through postcards. Whether by way of installation, collage, addition to, or alteration of existing postcards, or the production of postcards themselves, many prominent artists employ the medium in some form. Artists’ Postcards traces the origin of artists’ fascination with postcards from the early 1900s but with a focus on the contemporary, revealing the significant number of artists who have made creative and unusual artworks in postcard form.

With 400 images of postcards created by many well-known artists, Artists’ Postcards is the first critical guide to the subject. From surrealists to Fluxus and conceptual artists, this book includes an array of historical and contemporary postcards by such artists as George Grosz, Bruce Nauman, Richard Long, David Hockney, Richard Hamilton, Susan Hiller, Joseph Beuys, Ben Vautier, Dieter Roth, Ray Johnson, Gordon Matta-Clark, Gavin Turk, Tacita Dean, Gilbert and George and Rachel Whiteread.

Artists’ Postcards will be of interest to artists and graphic designers, as well as to postcard collectors.

With the Hand

Mels van Driel; Paul Vincent — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

People call it everything from “walking your dog” to “scratching your bean.” Women usually do it at home. Men, it sometimes seems, do it everywhere. Some people think it’s healthy; others think it is a sin that will send you straight to hell. But while many people declare that everyone’s doing it, no one actually talks about it—outside the pages of Cosmo, masturbation is among the most taboo of topics, not suitable for polite society or public conversation.

Mels van Driel boldly breaks this silence in order to help the world overcome its diffidence toward solo sex in With the Hand. Consulting everyone from doctors and sexologists to feminists and chauvinists, van Driel explains what masturbation actually is and describes the latest discoveries and developments on the subject. He also looks to theologians, historians, and philosophers to understand perceptions of masturbation across cultures and religions throughout history. Covering a great number of topics, including age, location, and frequency, as well as the effects of circumcision and the ability to have multiple orgasms, With the Hand also explores masturbation in art, literature, poetry, and music.

Addressing the physical, mythical, and mythological, this often humorous and always informative book clears up the confusion surrounding this universal, and universally unmentionable, topic.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Robert Bird — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Demons, The Idiot—the complex and prolific Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81) is responsible for some of our greatest literary works and most fascinating characters. Praised by the likes of Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf, he is also acknowledged by critics to be a preeminent writer of psychological fiction and a precursor of the twentieth-century existentialism. Set in the troubled political and social world of nineteenth-century Russia, Dostoevsky’s stories were shaped by the great suffering and difficult life the author himself experienced. Robert Bird explores these influences in this new biography of the prominent Russian author.

Bird traces Dostoevsky’s path from his harsh childhood through his years as a political revolutionary and finally to his development into a writer, who fought his battles through the printed word. Delving into Dostoevsky’s youth, Bird reveals his struggles with epilepsy and his despotic treatment at the hands of his father, a doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor in Moscow. Bird reveals how Dostoevsky, who championed the downtrodden throughout his career, first came into contact with the poor and oppressed through the hospital. He then outlines the years after Dostoevsky’s arrest and near-execution for being a member of an underground liberal intellectual group in 1849, detailing his subsequent exile with hard labor in Siberia and compulsory service in the army. As Bird illuminates how these grueling experiences contributed to the writing of novels like Notes from the Underground, he also describes how they instilled in the author a craving for social justice and quest for form that spurred his literary achievements. A fascinating look at this major writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky will pique the interest of any lover of literature.

World of Gardens

John Dixon Hunt — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

A Japanese garden is immediately distinct to the eye from the traditional gardens of an English manor house, just as the manicured topiaries of Versailles contrast with the sharp cacti of the American Southwest. Though gardening is beloved the world over, the style of gardens themselves varies from region to region, determined as much by culture as climate. In this series of illustrated essays, John Dixon Hunt takes us on a world tour of different periods in the making of gardens.

Hunt shows here how cultural assumptions and local geography have shaped gardens and their meaning. He explores our continuing responses to land and reworkings of the natural world, encompassing a broad range of gardens, from ancient Roman times to early Islamic and Mughal gardens, from Chinese and Japanese gardens to the invention of the public park and modern landscape architecture. A World of Gardens looks at key chapters in garden history, reviewing their significance past and present and tracing the recurrence of different themes and motifs in the design and reception of gardens throughout the world.

A World of Gardens celebrates the idea that similar experiences of gardens can be found in many different times and places, including sacred landscapes, scientific gardens, urban gardens, secluded gardens, and symbolic gardens. Featuring two hundred images, this book is a treasure trove of ideas and inspiration, whether your garden is a window box, a secluded backyard, or a daydream.

Trout

James Owen — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Leaping effortlessly from bright streams into the human imagination, the trout has an ancient fascination that can be traced back to Stone Age cave dwellers, and it thrives today in our diet, religion, folklore, history, science, literature, and, of course, fishermen’s tales.

James Owen reveals here why the trout beguiles us so. Taking myriad forms, the fish has a vitality and physical beauty that brings to mind pure waters and quiet, outdoor spaces. This biography of the trout showcases the animal as sacred fish, edible fish, farmed fish, and a fish of scientific investigation. In telling this story, Owen follows the trout around the world: starting in Europe and North America, he then follows the voyage that took the creature from England to Australia in the nineteenth century. Along the way, he presents a diverse cast of characters, from obscure British saints and fly-fishing nuns to visionary inventors, jazz singers, and counterculture novelists—all united by this magical animal.

Trout will delight and surprise anglers who have ever cast a fly and anyone who has caught a glimpse of its stunning camouflage.

End is Nigh

Henrik Svensen — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 05:00:00 GMT

The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. The South Asian Tsunami of 2004. The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. Hurricane Katrina in 2005. All of these are natural disasters that not only caused massive devastation but actually changed the course of history, and have influenced our reactions to and perspectives on disasters ever since.

Spanning two millennia, The End is Nigh provides a detailed history of natural disasters around the world and how they have shaped our cultural beliefs and our practical planning. Henrik Svensen draws from many eyewitness accounts to reveal the personal stories of the victims of natural disasters. Through them, we are reminded that while the disasters are natural phenomena, victims often react in similar ways seeking to explain the disaster within the context of an omen or a divine warning. A geologist, Svensen also explores the science behind the occurrence of specific disasters, and he examines whether climate change is creating an environment where natural disasters are more frequent and more deadly.

The End is Nigh is as instructive as it is insightful and will appeal to fans of history and science, as well as policy makers and all those seeking to better prepare for future calamities.

“The End is Nigh is a great example of storytelling across scientific disciplines, and in gripping prose it spans geology, geography and history, anthropology, sociology, and the history of religion.”—Apollon

Railway

George Revill — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

In the nineteenth century, railways were viewed as a symbol of progress and confidence in technological modernity. In the twenty-first century, the frustrations of gridlocked traffic, record-high gas prices, and the looming fears of climate change have transformed the railway system once again into a symbol of hope that provides the possibility of an environmentally sustainable future. In Railway, George Revill examines the technology and politics of railway history, as well as related themes such as mobility, identity, design, marketing, and sustainability.

In both practical and symbolic senses the cultural meanings of railways continue to play a role in how people organize and respond to modern environments, social problems, and technologies. Revill draws from art, literature, music, and film to illustrate how the railway carries meaning for all of us—creating connections and separations, detachment and involvement—from the routine commuter to the enthusiast. As Revill shows, railways inform our everyday language—from fast-track to side-track to going off the rails—and continue to fascinate us today.

In this wide-ranging and well-illustrated look at railways across the globe, Revill ultimately reveals how central they are to our understanding of modern everyday life.

Monarchies 1000-2000

W. M. Spellman — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Monarchies 1000 –2000 surveys a form of government whose legitimacy rests not on voluntary consensus but on age-old custom, heredity and/or religious sanction. Global in scope and comparative in approach, W. M. Spellman's survey establishes connections between monarchy as idea and practice in a variety of historical and cultural contexts across a millennium when the system was without serious rival.

Spellman examines the intellectual assumptions behind different models of monarchy, tracing the ways in which each of these assumptions shifted in response to historical factors. While no human institution has retreated as rapidly in the modern period, monarchy's remarkable longevity invites us to weigh the significance of hierarchy, subordination and dependence as constants of the human experience.

Sparrow

Kim Todd — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Innocent. Invader. Lover. Thief. Sparrows are everywhere and wear many guises. Able to live in the Arctic and the desert, from Beijing to San Francisco, the house sparrow is the most ubiquitous wild bird in the world. They are the subject of elegies by Catullus and John Skelton and listed as “pretty things” in Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book—but they’re also urban vermin with shocking manners that were so reviled that Mao placed them on the list of Four Pests and ordered the Chinese people to kill them on sight.

In Sparrow, award-winning science and natural history writer Kim Todd explores the bird's complex history, biology, and literary tradition. Todd describes the difference between Old World sparrows, like the house sparrow, which can nest in a garage or in an airport, and New World sparrows, which often stake their claim to remote islands or meadows in the high Sierra. In addition, she looks at the nineteenth-century Sparrow War in the United States—a battle over the sparrow’s introduction—which set the stage for decades of discussions of invasive species. She examines the ways in which sparrows have taught us about evolution and the shocking recent decline of house sparrows in cities globally—this disappearance of a bird that seemed hardwired for success remains an ornithological mystery.

With lush illustrations, ranging from early woodcuts and illuminated manuscripts to contemporary wildlife photography, this is the first book-length exploration of the natural and cultural history of this beloved, reviled, and ubiquitous bird.

Wolf

Garry Marvin — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Feared and revered, the wolf has been admired as a powerful hunter and symbol of the wild and reviled for its danger to humans and livestock. Garry Marvin reveals in Wolf how the ways in which wolves are imagined has had far-reaching implications for how actual wolves are treated by humans.

Indigenous hunting societies originally respected the wolf as a fellow hunter, but with the domestication of animals the wolf became regarded as an enemy due to its attacks on livestock. Wolves, as a result, developed a reputation as creatures of evil. In children’s literature, they were depicted as the intruder from the wild who preys on the innocent. And in popular culture, the wolf became the creature that evil humans can transform into—the dreaded werewolf. Fear of this enigmatic creature, Marvin shows, led to an attempt to eradicate it as a species. However, with the development of scientific understanding of wolves and their place in ecological systems and the growth of popular environmentalism, the wolf has been rethought and reimagined. The wolf now has a legion of new supporters who regard it as a charismatic creature of the newly valued wild and wilderness.

Marvin investigates the latest scientific understanding of the wolf, as well as its place in literature, history, and folklore, offering insights into our changing attitudes towards wolves.