University of Chicago Press: New Titles in Culture Studies

Old Man's Guide to Health and Longer Life

John Hill — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Tho' vegetables may be thought innocent, there are many cases in which they prove hurtful.

Carrots are to be avoided, for no old stomach can digest them.

It isn’t fun getting old, but, as the joke has it, being old is better than the alternative. Most of us worry about getting older, and there is an endless supply of guides out there claiming to hold the tips that will ensure wellness and vitality during our golden years. But before Dr. Oz and protein shakes, aging men turned to physician John Hill and The Old Man’s Guide to Health and Longer Life.

First published in the mid-eighteenth century, The Old Man’s Guide to Health and Longer Life is a lifestyle guide to longevity and good health for old men. Written in an age when the majority of the population didn’t live to see their fortieth birthday, Hill’s book provides practical advice on diet, exercise, and lifestyle, including sleep and emotional health, as well as illuminating insight into the thinking on health and longevity in the mid-eighteenth century. Some of the more prescriptive advice has the hysterical tone expected from eighteenth-century guides and manuals—“The pine-apple, the most pleasant of all fruit, is the most dangerous.”—but more surprising is how full of genuinely good advice the book is and how much of it reads like modern-day health literature. This includes such insightful sayings as: “A warm bath and a glass of wine if you are having difficulty getting to sleep”; “Use medicines only as a last resort—address diet and lifestyle first to resolve illness”; and “Quiet, good humour, and complacency of temper will prevent half the diseases of old people; and cure many of the others.”

Full of both sage wisdom and what now seem ridiculous regimens, The Old Man’s Guide to Health and Longer Life will be the perfect gift for a man of more mature years.

Edward Pugh of Ruthin 1763-1813

John Barrell — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Born in Ruthin, Denbighshire, Edward Pugh (1763–1813) was a Welsh-speaking artist and writer who worked as a miniaturist in London, exhibiting frequently at the Royal Academy. But Pugh’s passion was the landscape, and he painted remarkable views of North Wales that not only captivate but also reveal the development of the Welsh economy and Welsh national consciousness. Pugh also wrote and illustrated a fascinating, informative, and humorous account of a tour of North Wales around 1800—one of the only travel books written at that time by someone who could actually converse with the inhabitants.

Edward Pugh of Ruthin 1763–1813 is the first book to consider the work of this nearly forgotten Welsh artist and writer in detail, linking the history of art in Wales with the social history of the country. John Barrell shows how Pugh’s pictures and writings portray rural life and social change in Wales during his lifetime, from the effects of the war with France on industry and poverty, to the need to develop and modernize the Welsh economy, to the power of the landowners. Almost all of the pictures and accounts we have today of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century North Wales were made by English artists and writers, and none of these, as Barrell demonstrates, can tell us about life in North Wales with the same depth and authenticity as does Pugh.

Subject of Murder

Lisa Downing — Wed, 01 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

The subject of murder has always held a particular fascination for us. But, since at least the nineteenth century, we have seen the murderer as different from the ordinary citizen—a special individual, like an artist or a genius, who exists apart from the moral majority, a sovereign self who obeys only the destructive urge, sometimes even commanding cult followings. In contemporary culture, we continue to believe that there is something different and exceptional about killers, but is the murderer such a distinctive type? Are they degenerate beasts or supermen as they have been depicted on the page and the screen? Or are murderers something else entirely?

In The Subject of Murder, Lisa Downing explores the ways in which the figure of the murderer has been made to signify a specific kind of social subject in Western modernity. Drawing on the work of Foucault in her studies of the lives and crimes of killers in Europe and the United States, Downing interrogates the meanings of media and texts produced about and by murderers. Upending the usual treatment of murderers as isolated figures or exceptional individuals, Downing argues that they are ordinary people, reflections of our society at the intersections of gender, agency, desire, and violence.

Marking Modern Times

Alexis McCrossen — Wed, 01 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

The public spaces and buildings of the United States are home to many thousands of timepieces—bells, time balls, and clock faces—that tower over urban streets, peek out from lobbies, and gleam in store windows. And in the streets and squares beneath them, men, women, and children wear wristwatches of all kinds. Americans have decorated their homes with clocks and included them in their poetry, sermons, stories, and songs. And as political instruments, social tools, and cultural symbols, these personal and public timekeepers have enjoyed a broad currency in art, life, and culture.

In Marking Modern Times, Alexis McCrossen relates how the American preoccupation with time led people from across social classes to acquire watches and clocks. While noting the difficulties in regulating and synchronizing so many timepieces, McCrossen expands our understanding of the development of modern time discipline, delving into the ways we have standardized time and describing how timekeepers have served as political, social, and cultural tools in a society that doesn’t merely value time, but regards access to time as a natural-born right, a privilege of being an American.

Gusto for Things

Renata Ago; Bradford Bouley; Corey Tazzara; Paula Findlen — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

We live in a material world—our homes are filled with things, from electronics to curios and hand-me-downs, that disclose as much about us and our aspirations as they do about current trends. But we are not the first: the early modern period was a time of expanding consumption, when objects began to play an important role in defining gender as well as social status. Gusto for Things reconstructs the material lives of seventeenth-century Romans, exploring new ways of thinking about the meaning of things as a historical phenomenon.

Through creative use of account books, inventories, wills, and other records, Renata Ago examines early modern attitudes toward possessions, asking what people did with their things, why they wrote about them, and how they passed objects on to their heirs. While some inhabitants of Rome were connoisseurs of the paintings, books, and curiosities that made the city famous, Ago shows that men and women of lesser means also filled their homes with a more modest array of goods. She also discovers the genealogies of certain categories of things—for instance, books went from being classed as luxury goods to a category all their own—and considers what that reveals about the early modern era. An animated investigation into the relationship between people and the things they buy, Gusto for Things paints an illuminating portrait of the meaning of objects in preindustrial Europe.

City Water, City Life

Carl Smith — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

A city is more than a massing of citizens, a layout of buildings and streets, or an arrangement of political, economic, and social institutions. It is also an infrastructure of ideas, an embodiment of the beliefs, values, and aspirations of the people who created it. In City Water, City Life, celebrated historian Carl Smith explores this infrastructure of ideas through an insightful examination of the development of the first successful waterworks systems in Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago between the 1790s and the 1860s.

In this period the United States began its rapid transformation from rural to urban. Through an analysis of a broad range of verbal and visual sources, Smith shows how the discussion, design, and use of waterworks reveal how Americans framed their conceptions of urban democracy and how they understood the natural and the built environment, individual health and the well-being of society, and the qualities of time and history. As citizens debated matters of thirst, finance, and health, they also negotiated abstract questions of secular and sacred, real and ideal, immanent and transcendent, practical and moral.

By examining the place of water in the nineteenth-century consciousness, Smith illuminates how city dwellers perceived themselves during the great age of American urbanization. But City Water, City Life is more than a history of urbanization. It is also a refreshing meditation on water as a necessity, as a resource for commerce and industry, and as an essential—and central—part of how we define our civilization.

Black Swan Lake

Rod Giblett — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Rod Giblett came to live by Forrestdale Lake in southwestern Australia in 1986. Based in part on a nature journal he kept for several years, Black Swan Lake traces the life of the plants and animals of the surrounding area through the seasons. Presenting a wetlands calendar that charts the yearly cycle of the rising, falling, and drying waters of this internationally significant wetland, this book is a modern-day Walden. The first book to provide a cultural and natural history of this place—taking into account the indigenous people’s concept of the seasons (six instead of four)—Black Swan Lake will be enjoyed by conservationists, as well as others seeking connection with place, plants, and animals in their own bioregion.

ConFiguring America

Klaus Rieser; Michael Fuchs; Michael Phillips — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Elvis Presley. Marilyn Monroe. LeBron James. They’re all American, of course, but like many cultural figures who hail from the United States, they have names and faces known the world over. ConFiguring America brings together a series of incisive essays that analyze a wide range of such figures: those who embody America’s tendency to produce celebrities and iconic personalities with global reach.

Drawing on theoretical insights from a variety of fields—including cultural iconography, visual culture, star studies, and history—a diverse group of international contributors sheds light on how these figures and their media representations construct America’s image beyond its borders. An important addition to an expanding field, ConFiguring America will deepen readers’ understanding of celebrity, iconography, and their worldwide implications.

Turkish and Moroccan Second Generation and Their Comparison Group Peers in Amsterdam and Rotterdam

Nienke E. Hornstra; George Groenewold; Laurence Lessard-Phillips — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

This report provides technical information from a study on the lives of the second generation of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands today. Respondents provided detailed information on cultural, social, and economic aspects of integration in Dutch society. This report has a methodological focus and is important to those wishing to further explore the collected data and examine aspects of the survey’s design and implementation.

Why I Buy

Rami Gabriel — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Why do we buy? How do our acts of—and ideas about—consumption impact our selves, our institutions, and our societies? An incisive response to these questions, Why I Buy explains how consumption came to give meaning and value to social and personal life.

Balancing psychological, conceptual, and historical analyses with examples drawn from popular culture and mass media, Rami Gabriel traces the ways in which beliefs about the self—including dualism, individualism, and expressivism—influence consumer behavior. These understandings of the self, Gabriel argues, structure the values that Americans seek and find in consumer society; they therefore have structural consequences for our cultural, political, and economic lives. For example, Gabriel describes how imbalances in the institutions of participatory politics have directly resulted from a consumer society centered on powerful nongovernmental institutions and a scattered body of disengaged citizens whose social and individual needs are not primarily satisfied through civic involvement. By exploring the relationship between our individual needs and our institutions, Gabriel ultimately points the way toward transformations that could lead to a more sustaining and sustainable society.

Shanghai Street Style

Vicki Karaminas; Toni Johnson-Woods — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Although fashion fixtures and A-list celebrities pack the front rows at the biggest, most glamorous shows at fashion week, the most creative attire is often found not on the catwalks or inside the auditoriums but on the streets. Nowhere is this more evident than in the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai, where a vintage Vivienne Westwood frock pairs perfectly with a chic puffer, and neon brights elevate distressed denim to veritable haute couture.

Shanghai Street Style marksthe inaugural volume in an exciting new street style series from Intellect. With an array of up-and-coming young designers like Coko Wan, Nio, and Helen Lee, Shanghai is swiftly cementing its status as a global fashion destination—its first fashion week was in 2011—and this book brings together more than one hundred full-color photographs showcasing the remarkable diversity of styles seen on its streets. Alongside the photographs are short pieces of critical commentary by Vicki Karaminas and Toni Johnson-Woods, shedding light on the city’s changing culture and how this is expressed through the clothing choices of ordinary city-dwellers going about their daily routines. The result is a stunning street-level look at the trends shaping Shanghai’s fascinating fashion scene, with interesting echoes of East meets West and old meets new.

Eye-catching, entertaining, and informative, Shanghai Street Style gets at the roots of Shanghai trendsetters’ distinct personal styles, identifying the ideas and important cultural forces behind the trends.

Fear of Food

Harvey Levenstein — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

There may be no greater source of anxiety for Americans today than the question of what to eat and drink. Are eggs the perfect protein, or are they cholesterol bombs? Is red wine good for my heart or bad for my liver? Will pesticides, additives, and processed foods kill me? Here with some very rare and very welcome advice is food historian Harvey Levenstein: Stop worrying!

In Fear of Food Levenstein reveals the people and interests who have created and exploited these worries, causing an extraordinary number of Americans to allow fear to trump pleasure in dictating their food choices. He tells of the prominent scientists who first warned about deadly germs and poisons in foods, and their successors who charged that processing foods robs them of life-giving vitamins and minerals. These include Nobel Prize–winner Eli Metchnikoff, who advised that yogurt would enable people to live to be 140 by killing the life-threatening germs in their intestines, and Elmer McCollum, the “discoverer” of vitamins, who tailored his warnings about vitamin deficiencies to suit the food producers who funded him. Levenstein also highlights how large food companies have taken advantage of these concerns by marketing their products to combat the fear of the moment. Such examples include the co-opting of the “natural foods” movement, which grew out of the belief that inhabitants of a remote Himalayan Shangri-la enjoyed remarkable health and longevity by avoiding the very kinds of processed food these corporations produced, and the physiologist Ancel Keys, originator of the Mediterranean Diet, who provided the basis for a powerful coalition of scientists, doctors, food producers, and others to convince Americans that high-fat foods were deadly.

In Fear of Food, Levenstein offers a much-needed voice of reason; he expertly questions these stories of constantly changing advice to reveal that there are no hard-and-fast facts when it comes to eating. With this book, he hopes to free us from the fears that cloud so many of our food choices and allow us to finally rediscover the joys of eating something just because it tastes good.

Book of Barely Imagined Beings

Caspar Henderson — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

From medieval bestiaries to Borges’s Book of Imaginary Beings, we’ve long been enchanted by extraordinary animals, be they terrifying three-headed dogs or asps impervious to a snake charmer’s song. But bestiaries are more than just zany zoology—they are artful attempts to convey broader beliefs about human beings and the natural order. Today, we no longer fear sea monsters or banshees. But from the infamous honey badger to the giant squid, animals continue to captivate us with the things they can do and the things they cannot, what we know about them and what we don’t.

With The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Caspar Henderson offers readers a fascinating, beautifully produced modern-day menagerie. But whereas medieval bestiaries were often based on folklore and myth, the creatures that abound in Henderson’s book—from the axolotl to the zebrafish—are, with one exception, very much with us, albeit sometimes in depleted numbers. The Book of Barely Imagined Beings transports readers to a world of real creatures that seem as if they should be made up—that are somehow more astonishing than anything we might have imagined. The yeti crab, for example, uses its furry claws to farm the bacteria on which it feeds. The waterbear, meanwhile, is among nature’s “extreme survivors,” able to withstand a week unprotected in outer space. These and other strange and surprising species invite readers to reflect on what we value—or fail to value—and what we might change.

A powerful combination of wit, cutting-edge natural history, and philosophical meditation, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is an infectious and inspiring celebration of the sheer ingenuity and variety of life in a time of crisis and change.

Can Onions Cure Ear-Ache?

William Buchan; Melanie King — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

What common condition was once treated with cow dung? How might oyster shells relieve heartburn? Can eels really cure deafness? Is the secret to stopping a stubborn case of hiccups a simple ingredient found in most pantries? If you were struck by illness or injury in the late eighteenth century, you would most likely have been referred to Scottish physician William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine—and, as a result, you may have found yourself administering urine to your ears or drinking a broth made from sheep’s brains.

Originally published in 1769, Domestic Medicine was produced for the benefit of those without access to—or means to afford—medical assistance, and copies of the book were found in apothecaries and coffee houses, private households and clubs. In 1797, Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian and his crew even had the foresight to pack a copy before fleeing to the Pitcairns. Derived from folklore and the emerging medical science of the day, some of Buchan’s recommendations for how to live a healthy life still ring true: for instance, exercising, enjoying a varied diet, and getting an abundance of fresh air. Others are delightfully dodgy or even downright dangerous, such as genital trusses, the prescription of mercury, or the suggestion that Spanish fly might soothe aching joints.

Bringing together an exceedingly entertaining selection of entries from one of the earliest self-help books, Can Onions Cure Ear-ache? offers fascinating insight into the popular treatments of the time.

Advertising as Culture

Chris Wharton — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Penned by contributors from a range of disciplines, including art history, sociology, and media and cultural studies, the essays that constitute Advertising as Culture offer an informed and critical overview of approaches to the study of advertising. These in-depth contributions explore such topics as the conceptual relationship between advertising and culture; the development of advertising through the industrial period; the nature of advertising production and reception; the relationship of advertising to a range of cultural fields such as art, fashion, and music; and developments in digital media practice.

Chasing Warsaw

Monika Grubbauer; Joanna Kusiak — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Warsaw is one of the most dynamically developing cities in Europe, and its rich history has marked it as an epicenter of many modes of urbanism: Tzarist, modernist, socialist, and—in the past two decades—aggressively neoliberal. Focusing on Warsaw after 1990, this volume explores the interplay between Warsaw’s past urban identities and the intense urban change of the ’90s and ’00s. Chasing Warsaw departs from the typical narratives of post-socialist cities in Eastern Europe by contextualizing Warsaw’s unique transformation in terms of both global change and the shifting geographies of centrality and marginality in contemporary Poland.

From Books to Bezoars

Michael Hunter; Alison Walker; Arthur MacGregor — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

This well-illustrated volume offers fresh perspectives on the great eighteenth-century physician, naturalist, and collector Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), whose extensive holdings formed the basis of the British Museum and its offspring, the Natural History Museum and the British Library. The colonial milieu within which Sloane operated gets prominence here, particularly the time he spent in Jamaica. Attention is paid to his enormous network of acquaintances and correspondents throughout the world as well as to the way his collecting activities permeated every aspect of his life. Other essays consider the museum specimens accumulated by Sloane—both natural and man-made—shedding new light on his aims for acquiring and organizing them. A fascinating look at the man behind three of the United Kingdom’s most famous museums, From Books to Bezoars will appeal to students and scholars of eighteenth century studies, early modern science, and the history of the book.

Iberian Modalities

Joan Ramon Resina — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

The term “Iberian studies” has been gaining academic currency, but there is still disagreement about its exact meaning. For some it is a convenient way of combining the official cultures of Portugal and Spain, yet for others the term challenges conventional geographical attitudes. Iberian Modalities brings together contributions from leading international scholars to demonstrate the cultural and linguistic complexity of the field by reflecting on the institutional challenges to the practice of Iberian studies.

Theatre and Performance in Small Nations

Steve Blandford — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Arguing that the cultures of small nations offer vital insights into the way people relate to national identity in a globalized world, Theatre and Performance in Small Nations features an array of case studies that examine the relationships between theater, performance, identity, and the nation. These contributions cover a wide range of national contexts, including small “stateless” nations such as Catalonia, Scotland, and Wales; First Nations such as indigenous Australia and the Latino United States; and geographically enormous nations whose relationships to powerful neighbors radically affect their sense of cultural autonomy

Travelling Goods, Travelling Moods

Christian Huck; Stefan Bauernschmidt — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Looking at cultural appropriation from around the world, this volume uses the field of cultural studies—heavily influenced by both economics and sociology—as a lens through which to view the paradigm of transcultural consumption. The editors present a variety of consumptive phenomena including: the introduction of Chinese foods to the United States, Ford cars in Germany, and American schoolbooks in the Philippines. Rejecting the idea that these interactions were simply forms of “Americanization,” Travelling Goods, Travelling Moods fills a gap in consumer studies and enriches the debate about cultural transfer.

True History Full of Romance

Marga Altena — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

In this important study, Marga Altena offers a fascinating overview of racial politics in the Netherlands during the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century through three case studies of real-life multiracial couples from different socioeconomic classes and geographic regions. With particular care paid to the way news and visual media portrayed these couples, Altena has created a highly readable narrative that represents its protagonists not simply as victims of racial prejudice, but also as agents in their own self-representation. Complete with stunning images, A True History Full of Romance sheds light on a rarely explored, but undeniably fascinating aspect of Dutch history.

Africa in Europe

Eve Rosenhaft; Robbie Aitken — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Africa in Europe goes beyond the still-dominant American and transatlantic focus of disapora studies, examining the experiences of black and white Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, and African Americans in Western Europe, Britain, and the former Soviet Union from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. Exploring a huge range of border-crossing experiences across and within Africa and Europe, it examines topics such as ethnic and cultural boundaries, working across the color line, and the limits of solidarity. With contributions from scholars in social history, art history, anthropology, cultural studies, and literary studies, as well from a novelist and a filmmaker, it offers a broad look at the intersection of Africa and Europe at all levels, from family and community to culture and politics.

From The Holy Land to Graceland

Gary Vikan — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

According to medievalist Gary Vikan, Graceland is much more than a wildly popular tourist destination associated with a famous entertainer, and Elvis Presley is much more than the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. In this fascinating new book, Vikan posits that Graceland, the second-most visited historic house in the United States, is a locus sanctus—a holy place—and Elvis is its resident saint. Thus the hordes of fans that crowd Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis are modern day pilgrims, connected in spirit and practice to their early Christian counterparts, sharing a fascination for icons and iconography, relics, souvenirs, votives, and even a belief in miracles. Vikan goes on to explore many other loci sancti around the world, including Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, the Grassy Knoll in Dallas, and the Place de l’Alma in Paris. From the Holy Land to Gracelandexplores the role of our “martyred” secular saints today from John F. Kennedy to Michael Jackson.

Mindscapes of Montréal

Ceri Morgan — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

In Mindscapes of Montréal, Ceri Morgan examines a number of francophone novels written between 1960 and 2005 and set in Montréal. Morgan captures each book’s formal innovations and engagements with the complex cultural and linguistic geographies of Montréal. She then broadens her analysis and fills in the aesthetic, social, and political backdrops against which these novels were written. In doing so, Morgan demonstrates the importance of the imagination in our experience and understanding of the urban.

Thinking Barcelona

Edgar Illas — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Thinking Barcelona studies the ideologies that redefined Barcelona during the 1980s and helped the city adapt to a new economy of tourism, culture, and services. Looking specifically at the lead-up to the 1992 Olympic Games and the urban renewal geared toward establishing Barcelona as a happy combination of European cosmopolitanism and Mediterranean rootedness, Edgar Illas situates Barcelona as a key example of contemporary urban rebranding after the fall of communism and the establishment of the neoliberal “end of history.” Looking at a host of materials associated with the games as well as contemporary architectural and literary works, he offers a compelling look at postmodern globalization as it manifests itself through urban regeneration.

Welcome Home, Boys!

Sebastian Jobs — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

During the first half of the twentieth century military victory parades in New York became an iconic part of the American cultural memory—ticker tape and soldiers returning to their sweethearts symbolized the joy of a nation at peace. In this incisive new study, Sebastian Jobs approaches these events as political street theater. Focusing on organizers, spectators, and soldiers, Jobs explores each group’s participation in the action, as well as the ways in which they interacted with each another. This book also demonstrates how abstract concepts, like the nation-state, were embodied in these events, and how these political performances made an impact on American culture and society.

Why Would Anyone Wear That?

Celia E. Stall-Meadows; Leslie Stall Widener — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Bustles. Tight-laced Corsets. Caged crinolines that encased the hapless wearer in hoops of steel. Why would anyone want to wear such things? Yet, you can be certain that no lady of the Victorian upper class would choose to leave home without them—and she’d complete her look with a feather- and flower-festooned bonnet as befit the latest fashion.

With a blend of wisdom and wit, Why Would Anyone Wear That? explores extreme fashions from around the world. The Victorian era was by no means alone in strange sartorial choices. Throughout history, men and women have turned to clothing and accessories to adorn and accentuate parts of the body. Some of the fashions, like bloomers, were surprisingly functional. Others, like powdered wigs and hobble skirts, were inconvenient and uncomfortable. And a few particularly painful practices could even permanently disfigure the wearer, like brass coils worn in Burma to lengthen the neck and the custom of binding of women’s feet to fit tiny lotus slippers in Song dynasty China. Presenting dozens of the most peculiar fashions, including shoes, hats, jewelry, undergarments, and outerwear, the book provides insightful commentary, placing the garments and accessories in the proper historical, social, and cultural context.

If you’ve ever wondered why the codpiece was created or the leisure suit went out of style, this book will answer that question and many more. Fully illustrated and packed with fun facts, Why Would Anyone Wear That? introduces readers to the fascinating stories behind some of the world’s weirdest fashions.

From NWICO to WSIS: 30 Years of Communication Geopolitics

Divina Frau-Meigs; Jérémie Nicey; Michael Palmer; Julia Pohle; Patricio Tupper — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Two major regulatory activities have framed global media policies since World War II: the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) and the more recent World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Through extensive research and testimonies from those involved, this book presents an in-depth account from the 1970s to today of the major issues concerning information flow in international geopolitics, including a look at the negotiations surrounding the major policy debates. Few studies of NWICO and WSIS have considered the continuity between the two activities—or included in the debate the crucial intermediary period between—and this book provides new insight into an issue of multilingual and multicultural importance.