Pungent and profoundly moving, the introductory sequences to these seminal essays establish new levels of critical consciousness in that melancholy discipline known as art history. Frascina and Harris, two of our most exalted and distinguished cultural historians, provide a comprehensive survey of the culture-politics interface in C20th society. Consistently devastating and endlessly locked into the real critical issues, this is essential reading for all students of modern visual culture.

This was my very first book cover 10 years ago. Today the book roles are reversed. I'm the single parent not the kid! I still love to go to the library to see the book on the shelf and my 6 yr old loves when I read him "Mommy's Book". Mark is a wonderful author and he did a beautiful job. This is a wholesome, genuine, down to earth great pre-teen book. A must for all aspiring young actors/actresses.

An immortal classic.No finer theoretical or literary achievement can be imagined within Art History.

The Frontier Issues in Economic Thought summaries, along with the overview essays, provide a markedly different service from the standard collection of abstracts. The series will benefit not only scholarly work but the application of our best thinking to the problems of the times.

Kenneth Prewitt, President, Social Sciences Research Council

This book is a really awesome book. I think everyone should take a chance at reading it.Teens will like it better though. Solay is a book about a girl named Melissa. She is about 12 years old. The book is about how Melissa has to move to a different and larger school. She gets picked on and teased for everything. I guess the kids either like picking on new comers, or they simply just like teasing. Anyway READ IT!!!!!!!!

This is a wonderful collection of essays and the introductory sections are very informative, however the complete essays are not included, only 2-3 summaries written by the editors. This may not be clear from the information given by Amazon.com.

The essays are the some of the best in the field and the summaries well written. But, the overall usefulness of this book is limited. It may be a good starting point for research; readers will quickly find themselves wanting the full text of some of the essays summarized. It may also be a useful study guide for students who have read many of the complete articles and would like a quick summary that is more complete then a usual journal abstract.

Beyond that, this is not a helpful book. I would recommend Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability by Robert Costanza, which contains many of the same articles and other works by many of the same authors.

This book is priced much lower than other collections of essays in Ecological Economics, but considering it does not contain full articles it should probably be even cheaper.

As a student in environmental economics at masters-level, i must say that this essay collection has come as rain from a blue sky. Essay collections in general is a great thing, and indeed there is a few of reccommendation behind from this one. But two things stands out from this one. Firstly in embraces a vast number of articles which rightly belongs to the "classics" category. And unfortunately such articles are sometimes hard to come by, and a number of the article included in this collection has not, to my knowledge, been published before. Therefore the book is excellent as a reference collection. Furthermore the structure of the book, is made up in such a way, that the articles are printed under a thematic heading. And the editors has managed to provide some excellent introductions to each new subject, which mean that the reader, even though he's not capable of grasping the essence of all the collected essays, at least get a fair idea of the problems involved.

In all, this means this collection, apart from being an important reference book, is providing a very comprehensive way of making essay collections in general. So all five stars are indeed well deserved.

The Frontier Issues in Economic Thought summaries, along with the overview essays, provide a markedly different service from the standard collection of abstracts. The series will benefit not only scholarly work but the application of our best thinking to the problems of the times.

Kenneth Prewit, President, Social Sciences Research Council

In the mist of today's worldwide events, where prejudice and hate runs free, it is encouraging to the human spirit to read the story of the kindertransport. "Into the Arms of Strangers" is a first person narration of some of the children (now elderly adults) who were saved from the hands of Nazism and given an opportunity to start a new life. This was all possible thanks to a noble attitude from the British government who was aware(as well as many other nations) of the final destination of the Jewish population. From this act of mercy, 10,000 children (most of them from Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany) were transported from their native countries just before the outbreak of World War II (1938) into England where they were temporarily adopted, until circunstances would allow them to reunite with their families. Despite the suffering these children went through, the unfair treatment some of them received, the psychological trauma, they are all thankful for the opportunity of being alive. Most of them were able to restructure their lives, set roots and build a family. Today they are witnesses to a dreadful chapter in human history and are here to give their testimony. Great merit goes to all of those who were involved in this humanitarian effort (Otto Hirsch, Norbert Wollheim, amongst others).
Sad though it may be to read the account of each of these survivors, even sadder it is to realize that many, many more children could have been saved where it not for the selfish attitude taken by many nations. For those who have had an opportunity to visit the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, it is a consolation to know that the children saved by the kindertransport are not listed among the other 1,000,000 children who did not have the same opportunity. And history keeps reapeating itself... not much thinking is nedded to realize that at the present moment there are people in several parts of the world who would have their lives saved if the "kinderstransport spirit" were to prevail.
There is a film in DVD/Video version of "Into the Arms of Strangers," which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It is highly recommended, the book and the film complement and enrich each other.

I enjoy reading memoirs because by personalizing a part of history they bring history to life in a way that no text book can."Into the Arms of Strangers" is an example of just such a book. This book details in length the story of one of histories greatest resuces. (At least in terms of the numbers saved from an almost certain death) Before the British entered WWII thousnds of Jewish children were rescued from Germany by the British people and their goverment in an operation known as Kindertransport."Into the Arms of Strangers" tells the inspiring and ocassionaly heartbreaking story of theese children. While they were given a second chance at life in England most would never again see the parents who Heroicaly gave them to strangers in another country. If I have any criticisms of this book (and I do) It would be the way the story was put together. "Into the Arms Of Strangers " follows the stories of about a dozen kindertransport kids and thier families from the early days of the Nazis to present day. Each chapter covers a particualar time frame, for instance September 1st 1939 and tells the story of each child for that time period. then moves on to the next major event in the history of the holocaust.This format may have worked well if the story consisted of two or three kids and thier famalies but it became confusing when so many different stories were being told in the book. I Kept finding myself back tracking to previous pages and chapters just trying to keep the characters straight in my mind. The book would have been better off telling each childs story individually or having a narrower focus such as two or three kids.All in all though this is a book well worth reading and I highly reccomend it for history buffs and those who never heard the stoy of the kindertransport.

This was an illuminating and evocative book. Anyone interested in this topic should also read "Escape Via Siberia" and "The Uprooted" by Dorit Whiteman. Whiteman's books -- which expertly weave gripping personal accounts with historical context -- explore how survivors of the kindertransport and other Holocaust horrors coped with the legacy of their harrowing ordeals as adults. Whiteman is an expert in the field and some of her material was used in the movie, "Into the Arms of Strangers."

A very nice introduction to the volume points out the intellectual confusions and tensions throughout. A crude marxism and psychologism overlies a fairly traditional stylistic chronology. One realizes how important are later studies that emphasize patronage and actual political power as opposed to disembodied "forces" and "spirits."

Hauser is always provocative and sometimes amusing. There are surprisingly few examples or paintings analyzed in any detail and sometimes he goes off in such detail on literature that one wonders where the focus of the book truly lies.

This book is worthwhile reading to understand the roots of modern art history - for Hauser is responding to 19th century writers and sees Impressionism as the great watershed in his discipline. He is thus aware of the importance of his own historical nexus, yet is caught up in a kind of analytical conformity that all too often seems like a grey flannel suit imposed upon the art in question.

kalinin@terra.com.br
When I purchased The Social History of Art I had never intended to read it from cover to cover. It is, in fact, a bulky book, which covers the history of art from pre-historic to contemporary times. I thought it would be one of those books you place on your bedside table and from time to time, have a look at it, and read bits and pieces when you are sleepless in the small hours. Surprisingly, I started reading it from the very beginning and couldn't stop till I reached the final sentence. I still cannot make out how a single author managed to cope with such an ambitious project.

Unlike other books of art, which stick to the description of each style, and some artists' works as something divorced from other events that took place at the time when they were produced, this book contextualises all the art productions according to the philosophical principles that underlie them, establishing the necessary link with the historical panorama and the social and political backdrop at the time that each artist lived and produced his/her works. Above all, Hauser's The Social History doesn't stick to the analysis of the visual arts as most art books do, but on the contrary, his broad scope extends to literature, drawing, paintings and even films. Never had I dreamed of understanding art as I could understand after reading Hauser's book.

Besides, as an amateur admirer of art, I was thrilled to realise that I could read and grasp his meaning with no extra effort; even so, he never patronises the reader. After reading this book, I realised that concepts I had always taken at face value and had never disputed, had gone down the drain. To my surprise, artists such as Shakespeare and Michelangelo are, in his book, not Renaissance artists but Mannerist artists. So, you learn to evaluate the artists and classify them using a different criterion. Well, this book is good value for money!

Well, that is almost the case. In this four volume set, Hauser accomplishes a concise but sweeping survey of art and society from the Neolithic Age through mid-twentieth century film and the dadaist movement. The references do require some basic familiarity with the literary, artistic, and musical titans, but not expertise. And a reader armed with such a basic familiarity quickly realizes that Hauser succeeds admirably in untangling the complex relationships between the political, social, and religious elements of a culture and artists of genius. After the initial publication of the series, Thomas Mann commented that Hauser provides deep insight into Shakespeare and Goethe. I would add that the same can be said of Dante, Giotto, Beethoven, and a host of others. These volumes may have fallen out of print or may be hard to find, but they are well worth the search.

Lemuel Gulliver is a surgeon/ship¨ˆs captain who embarks on several intriguing adventures. His first endeavor takes him to Lilliput, where all inhabitants are six inches tall, but resemble normal humans in every other respect. His next voyage lands him on Brobdingnag, where a grown man is sixty feet tall, and even the shortest dwarf stands thirty feet tall. On his third trip, he travels to several locations, including a floating island. During Gulliver¨ˆs final voyage, he is abandoned by his mutinous crew on the island of the Houyhnhnms, which are extremely intelligent horses. No evil or concept of lying exists among these creatures. The island is also inhabited by Yahoos, savage, irrational human-like creatures who are kept as pets by the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver wishes to spend the rest of his life on this peaceful island, but he is banished and forced to return to England.
I really enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it to people 14 or older. Since the novel was written in the 1700¡¯s, the words, grammar and usage are a little confusing. The reader also must have prior knowledge of 18th-century politics to get a full image of what Swift is trying to convey. At some points, the author goes into detail about nautical terms and happenings, and that tends to drag. Overall, the book is well-written, slightly humorous, if not a little confusing.

Swift's classic satire of English and European governments, societies, and cultures should be required reading of every college student. (Except for those who appear to be in law school as is the earlier reviewer who referred to Swift as being an "18th century Unabomber." Swift may have been conservative in his beliefs and not cared much for individuals such as Robert Boyle, who is satirized in the book, but he was not violent. Perhaps our "law student/reviewer" is offended by Swift's biting satire of lawyers and politicians in part four.) The version I read was an annotated edition by Isaac Asimov and contained many passages that had been deleted by previous publishers. Asimov's comments enable the reader to more fully appreciate Swift's satire. In part one of the novel, a ship's surgeon, Lemuel Gulliver, is shipwreaked and finds himself on the island of Lilliput, the inhabitants all being only six inches high. This section is great satire of English politics and wars. Royal ponp, feuds amongst the populace, and wars are made to look rediculous. In the second part, Gulliver finds himself in Brobdingnag in which he is only six "inches" tall (relatively speaking). This part forms another satire of European governments. In part three, Gulliver visits the flying island of Laputa where shades of ancient scholars can be called up. This section is a satire on philosophers and scientists. Scientists are portrayed as men so wrapped up intheir speculations as to be totally useless in practical affairs. Absurd experiments are described (for example, extracting sunlight from cucumbers (but, extracting energy from cucumbers and other plants is no longer so absurd Jonathan)). Also described in this third part are the Struldbergs, men and women who are immortal but who turn out to be miserable and pitiable. In part four, Gulliver travels to the Land of the Houyhnhnms, horses with intelligence but who have no passion or emotion. The word "Yahoo" originates in this part. READ IT!

Gulliver's Travels is an excellent book. In it Swift satirizes what he thought were the foibles of his time, in politics, religion, science, and society. In Part One Lemuel Gulliver is shipwrecked on Lilliput where the inhabitants are only 6 inches tall. The rivalry between Britain and France is there satirized. In Part Two he is marooned on the subcontinent of Brobdingnag where the inhabitants are giants. The insignificance of many of mankind's achievements are there satirized. Next in Part Three Gulliver is taken aboard the floating island of Laputa, where Swift takes the opportunity to satirize medicine and science altogether - incredibly Swift did not make up the crazy experiments he describes; all were sponsored at one time or another by the Royal Society. Finally in Part Four Gulliver is marooned by mutineers on the island of the Houyhnhynms, in which Swift takes his parting shot at human society - presenting them in degraded form as the Yahoos. Most people read no further in the book than Brobdingnag - I urge you to read the rest.

Intelligent story based upon the search for amber panels missing from Russia since WW II.
Nice plot twists that involve CIA, Politburo, European aristocracy and others searching for the amber room. Along the way art dealers, ex KGB agents, and NYC cops get involved.
Descriptive writing carries the reader from NYC to Moscow to Europe effortlessy. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and knocked it down to 4 stars only because I would have liked to have seen more extensive character development. However, the book was a great read, and I didn't set it down until I finished it.
Hope to see more soon from this talented author, and hope as he matures as a writer we will see more development of his characters.
Highly recommend this book and eagerly await his next work.

I found Seizing Amber a thoroughly enjoyable read. Chapter One easily captured my attention making it a very difficult book to put down. The story has lots of twists, turns, and quite a few surprises. His characters are very cool, some I'm sure (and hope!) we'll see again in future books. Seizing Amber, a must read.

just read this and loved it; plot has tremendous pace and lots of great twists and turns. i had heard of the amber room before so was very interested in reading this and thought it delivered everything i wanted. highly recommend this to all mystery/ espionage/caper fans!!!