Böcker utgivna av Reaktion Books

Highly regarded woodpecker expert Gerard Gorman presents a unique natural, social and cultural history of woodpeckers.

Filled with beguiling images throughout, Lizard is a unique and sometimes surprising introduction to this popular but little-understood reptile. Boria Sax describes the diversity of lizard species and traces the representation of this reptile in cultures worldwide.

This comprehensive, highly illustrated new study examines Titian's long career and varied output. Tom Nichols argues that Titian's works were self-consciously original, freely and intentionally undermining the traditional, more modest approach to painting in Venice at that time.

The Space Within explores how interior space has been integral to the development of Modern architecture from the late 1800s to today, and how generations of architects have engaged with interior space and its experience in their design processes.

A Philosophy of Loneliness explores the different kinds of loneliness, the philosophy of emotions, why some people are lonelier than others, and the psychological and social characteristics that dispose people to loneliness.

This is an absorbing account of the life and work of one of Russia's most inventive and exuberant novelists and playwrights.

This is a natural and cultural history of the hippopotamus, the well-loved, cumbersome, rotund mammal famous for lounging around semi-submerged in muddy pools.

This monograph, the first full account of Eileen Agar's complete works, including paintings, collages, photographs and objects, comes at a time when there is a major revival of interest in surrealism in the UK and worldwide.

Forests--and the trees within them--have always been a central resource for the development of technology, culture, and the expansion of humans as a species. Examining and challenging our historical and modern attitudes toward wooded environments, this engaging book explores how our understanding of forests has transformed in recent years and how it fits in our continuing anxiety about our impact on the natural world. Drawing on the most recent work of historians, ecologist geographers, botanists, and forestry professionals, Charles Watkins reveals how established ideas about trees--such as the spread of continuous dense forests across the whole of Europe after the Ice Age--have been questioned and even overturned by archaeological and historical research. He shows how concern over woodland loss in Europe is not well founded--especially while tropical forests elsewhere continue to be cleared--and he unpicks the variety of values and meanings different societies have ascribed to the arboreal. Altogether, he provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary overview of humankind's interaction with this abused but valuable resource.

Over the last twenty years museums have proliferated, attracting new audiences and assuming new prominence in public life. The Return of Curiosity offers a fresh perspective on museums and what they may now be good for.

Berlin is a comprehensive short history and portrait of the German capital today.

A new critical biography of Joseph Beuys, arguably the most important and controversial German artist of the late twentieth century.

Thomas Hoerber illustrates how classical economic theory as well as a qualitative method in economics can enlighten our understanding of the present day economic environment.

People collect to connect with the past, personal and historic, to exercise some small and perfect degree of control over a carefully chosen portion of the world. The Grain of the Clay is Allen S. Weiss's engaging exploration of the meaning and practice of collecting through his relationship with Japanese ceramics.

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown is often thought of as an innovative genius who single-handedly pioneered a new, 'naturalistic' style of landscape design. Illustrated with over 120 images, this beautiful book shows that Brown's style, like the organization of his business, was the product of a distinctly modern world.

A natural and cultural history of that most potent of arthropod, the scorpion.

As it ranges from the traditions of the medieval marriage bed to Renaissance paintings of the Madonna and Child, this lavishly illustrated book will entertain anyone with an interest in history, art or culture. It is full of unexpected delights that will charm the mind and invigorate the senses - just like the carnation itself.

If there is one thing we are short on these days, it's attention. Attention is central to everything we do and think, yet it is mostly an intangible force, an invisible thing that connects us as subjects with the world around us. We pay attention to this or that, let our attention wander--we even stand at attention from time to time--yet rarely do we attend to attention itself. In this book, Gay Watson does just that, musing on attention as one of our most human impulses. As Watson shows, the way we think about attention is usually through its instrumentality, by what can be achieved if we give something enough of it--say, a crisply written report, a newly built bookcase, or even a satisfied child who has yearned for engagement. Yet in losing ourselves to the objects of our fixation, we often neglect the process of attention itself. Exploring everything from attention's effects on our neurons to attention deficit disorder, from the mindfulness movement to the relationship between attention and creativity, Watson examines attention in action through many disciplines and ways of life. Along the way, she offers interviews with an astonishing cast of creative people--from composers to poets to artists to psychologists--including John Luther Adams, Stephen Batchelor, Sue Blackmore, Guy Claxton, Edmund de Waal, Rick Hanson, Jane Hirshfield, Wayne Macgregor, Iain McGilchrist, Garry Fabian Miller, Alice and Peter Oswald, Ruth Ozeki, and James Turrell. A valuable and timely account of something central to our lives yet all too often neglected, this book will appeal to anyone who has felt their attention under threat in the clamors of modern life.

In this engaging book, Bernadine Barnes brings together new research to show how Michelangelo's art was viewed in its own time.

In this new critical biography Frida Beckman traces Gilles Deleuze's remarkable intellectual journey, mapping the encounters from which his life and work emerged.

Contains many fascinating facts about the world's fastest animal, including falcons in secret military projects and espionage; falcons nesting in the middle of cities; the history of the race to save the peregrine; and the colourful sport of falconry.

The zombie has shuffled with dead-eyed, remorseless menace from its beginnings in folklore and primitive superstition to become the dominant image of the undead. Roger Luckhurst sifts material from anthropology, folklore, long-forgotten pulp literature, B-movies, medical history and cultural theory to give a definitive introduction to the zombie.

Drawing on archaeological evidence and a wealth of oral and written history, this book reveals the journey Vietnamese food has traversed through history to become a much-loved cuisine today.

In this compelling journey through peaks both real and imaginary, Veronica della Dora explores how the history of mountains is deeply interlaced with cultural values and aesthetic tastes, with religious beliefs and scientific practices.

Edible Flowers is the fascinating history of how flowers have been used in cooking from ancient customs to modern kitchens. It also serves up novel ways to prepare and eat soups, salads, desserts and drinks. Discover something new about the flowers all around you with this surprising history.

Chillies traces the culinary journey of the spice and uncovers cultural and spiritual links between chillies and humans, from their use as an aphrodisiac, to the recent discovery that chilli heat shows promise as a treatment for neuropathic pain, prostate cancer and leukaemia.

An exploration of the issues that arise when philosophers ask 'how are we to eat?'

For those who visit the United Arab Emirates (UAE), staying in its the lavish hotels and browsing in the ultra-modern shopping malls of Abu Dhabi or Dubai, the country can be a mystery, a glass and concrete creation that seems to have sprung from the desert overnight. Keepers of the Golden Shore looks behind this glossy façade, illuminating the region's history, which stretches from the ancient Arabian tribes who controlled a desolate but economically important shoreline to the ostentatious architectural wonders--bankrolled by a massive wealth of oil--that characterize it today. As Michael Quentin Morton recounts, the region now known as the UAE likely began as a trading post between Mesopotamia and Oman, and since that time has been the stage of important economic and cultural exchanges. It has seen the rise and fall of a thriving pearl industry, piracy, invasions and wars, and the arrival of the oil age that would make it one of the richest countries on earth. Since the early 1970s, when seven sheikhs agreed to enter into a union, it has been a sovereign nation, carrying on the resourceful spirit--with resplendent fervor--that the brutally inhospitable landscape has long demanded of the people. Ultimately, Morton shows that the country is not only rich in oil and money but in an extraordinarily deep history and culture.

A new, critical biography of enigmatic French theorist, writer, actor and artist Antonin Artaud examining Artaud's work in relation to his life, as well as the many influential figures he came into contact with.