In this lively intellectual history of the political Left, cultural critic Susie Linfield investigates how eight prominent twentieth-century intellectuals struggled with the philosophy of Zionism, and then with Israel and its conflicts with the Arab...

In this groundbreaking study, Richard J. Powell investigates the visual forms of satire produced by black artists in 20th- and 21st-century America. Underscoring the historical use of visual satire as antiracist dissent and introspective critique, Po...

In 1903, the Art Institute of Chicago became the first American museum to buy a painting by Claude Monet (1840–1926), beginning a tradition of collecting that has inextricably connected this midwestern city to the French Impressionist master. Tracing...

The Belgian artist James Ensor (1860-1949) was a major figure in the Belgian avant-garde of the late 19th century and an important precursor to the development of Expressionism in the early 20th century. Daring and socially engaged, Ensor included po...

The book of Job has often been called the greatest poem ever written. The book, in Edward Greenstein's characterization, is "a Wunderkind, a genius emerging out of the confluence of two literary streams" which "dazzles like Shakespeare with unrivaled...

Full of memorable and surprising buildings, Nottinghamshire is a county that rewards close investigation. Great medieval churches are represented by Newark, Worksop Priory, and Southwell Minster, famous for its exquisite carved "leaves". Of the count...

Few have ever enjoyed the degree of foreign-policy influence and versatility that Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. did – in the postwar era, perhaps only George Marshall, Henry Kissinger, and James Baker. Lodge, however, had the distinction of wielding that inf...

From Leonardo da Vinci and John Dee to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, polymaths have moved the frontiers of knowledge. Nonetheless, in our current age of specialization, polymaths are often remembered for only one part of their varied achievements....

The artist has been a privileged figure in the modern age, embodying ideals of personal and political freedom and self-fulfillment. Does it matter who gets to be an artist? And do our deeply held beliefs stand up to scrutiny? "Making the Modern Artis...

This innovative study explores the transition in Brazil from a hegemonically Catholic society to a religiously pluralistic society. With sensitivity and nuance, Erika Helgen shows that the rise of religious pluralism was fraught with conflict and vio...