By Grazia Ietto Gillies Memories are multidimensional and this is reflected in my book. There are, however, two themes that run across the memoir: the impact that our little Calabrian town and its society had on me and on my family; and food. Food played a vital role in our family life and culture and … Continue reading
Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s Wedding Dance in the Open Air is an irresistible summons to a party. We are all invited – approaching from the edges of a wooded glade we can spy the bride at the heart of the festivities. She is seated at a table before a makeshift cloth of honour … Continue reading
As it’s black history month in the United States, I wanted to do a quick list of my favourite African American Artists. You can find out more information about some of them (noted in the text) in Derek Conrad Murray’s Queering Post-Black Art (I.B.Tauris 2016). If you like Matisse and Kandinsky, and have not yet … Continue reading
Alice Bacon was one of the twentieth-century’s most remarkable female politicians. Born and raised in the Yorkshire town of Normanton, she defied the odds to be elected Labour MP for Leeds North East in the 1945 General Election. Famed in her home town for her unlikely love of sports cars, she was a much-respected, no-nonsense, … Continue reading
by Nicolas Pillai Tim Wall and Paul Long note that The Sound of Jazz (1957) was one of a series of CBS-TV arts programmes themed around Gilbert Seldes’ notion of The Seven Lively Arts. The sophisticated visual design of the programme provided candid access to musicians in performance, framing jazz history and performance within the … Continue reading
By Anne-Christine Wegener Global athletics have been in crisis since 2015. The second edition of the report published by Richard McLaren on grand-scale doping in Russian athletics confirms what many had already suspected: corruption and doping in sports go hand-in-hand and the problem is not restricted to a few bad apples. The problem distorts the … Continue reading
An anti-communist hawk who hated nuclear weapons. A passionate advocate of freedom who supported brutal dictators and insurgents across Central America. An advocate of low taxes and a small state who saw public expenditure on arms balloon during his time in office. These are just a few of the contradictions that historians are presented with … Continue reading
Following an unprecedented response from all over the company, the I.B.Tauris team are pleased to present part two of our 2016 round-up. Enjoy… Alex Wright – Executive Editor I.B.Tauris Book of the Year Henrietta Leyser writes about early medieval history in a way that compels you, over and over again, to look completely afresh at … Continue reading
Whatever 2016 has been – and it has been remarkable for many, many reasons – it has been a great year for books. The team here at IBT have put our collective heads together and come up with our favourites, from both within and without our own publishing stable. We hope you enjoy this festive … Continue reading
This dark painting displaying a cubist aesthetic and oriental theme is a work by Alexander Volkov – an ethnically Russian artist working in what is now known as Uzbekistan, then part of the Soviet Union’s Central Asia – in the midst of the construction of the Soviet state. We see three Asian-looking men offering … Continue reading
In 1984, Paul Virilio published War and Cinema. Today, there is no reason to use the conjunction, since we live in a state of cinema war. All the advances made in audio-visual technologies are advances in intensities, at times beyond sound and vision. Think LIDAR and Kinect devices that do not record images but light … Continue reading
Yesterday, Abbas Kiarostami passed away at the age of 76. The filmmaker, best known for the Koker trilogy (1987–94), Close-Up (1990), Taste of Cherry (1997) – which won the Palme d’Or – was interviewed by Shiva Rahbaran for her book, Iranian Cinema Uncensored: Contemporary Film-Makers Since the Islamic Revolution (2015). Here is an extract of that interview… Continue reading
In the wake of International Women’s Day 2016, Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs picks two stand-out moments for celebrity culture and activism over the past year… As a celebrity studies scholar and one who is interested the representations of famous women in mainstream culture, when International Women’s Day approaches, I find myself reflecting on the past year … Continue reading
