Philip Steadman investigates the claims that the 17th-century artist, Johannes Vermeer, used the camera obscura to create some of his artwork. this study reconstructs his studio, complete with camera. He asserts that that this experimentation with new technology enabled his style to develop.

In this book the leading authority on Japanese art history sheds light on how Japan has nurtured distinctive aesthetics, prominent artists, and movements that have achieved global influence and popularity. The History of Art in Japan discusses works ranging from earthenware figurines in 13,000 BCE to manga, anime, and modern subcultures.

'If I were a voter in Britain, I would vote for [Jeremy Corbyn]' - Noam Chomsky, 2017

Who Rules the World is the essential account of geopolitics right now - including an afterword on President Donald Trump

Noam Chomsky: philosopher, political writer, fearless activist. No one has done more to question the hidden actors who govern our lives, calling the powers that be to account. Here he presents Who Rules the World?, his definitive account of those powers, how they work, an...

'To read Being Ecological is to be caught up in a brilliant display of intellectual pyrotechnics' P.D.Smith, GuardianWhy is everything we think we know about ecology wrong?Is there really any difference between 'humans' and 'nature'?Does this mean we even have a future?Don't care about ecology? This book is for you. Timothy Morton, who has been called 'Our most popular guide to the new epoch' (Guardian), sets out to show us that whether we know it or not, we already have the capacity and the ...

A crucial new guide to one of the most urgent political phenomena of our time: the rise of national populism

Across the West, there is a rising tide of people who feel excluded, alienated from mainstream politics, and increasingly hostile towards minorities, immigrants and neo-liberal economics. Many of these voters are turning to national populist movements, which have begun to change the face of Western liberal democracy, from the United States to France, Austria to the UK.

The author has always been obsessed with wildlife, from his childhood menagerie of exotic pets and dabbling in experimental taxidermy to his groundbreaking research into the mysterious ways of the bumblebee and his mission to protect our rarest bees. This book tells the story of his passionate drive.

Every weekend, in basements and parking lots across the country, young men with good white-collar jobs and absent fathers take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded for as long as they have to. Fight Club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter and dark, anarchic genius.

With great flair and authority, the author describes Prussia's great battles, dynastic marriages and astonishing reversals of fortune, its brilliant and charismatic leaders from the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg to Bismarck and Frederick the Great, the military machine and the progressive, enlightened values on which it was built.

The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. This title explains a compelling series of events.

An art expert sees a ten-million-dollar sculpture and instantly spots it's a fake. A marriage analyst knows within minutes whether a couple will stay together. A fire-fighter suddenly senses he has to get out of a blazing building. This book is all about those moments when we 'know' something without knowing why.