David's Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art - Hardcover

Coates, Ph.D. Victoria C. Gardner

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1594037213 ISBN 13: 9781594037214

Publisher: Encounter Books, 2016

Synopsis

Throughout Western history, the societies that have made the greatest contributions to the spread of freedom have created iconic works of art to celebrate their achievements. Yet despite the enduring appeal of these works from the Parthenon to Michelangelo’s David to Picasso’s Guernica histories of both art and democracy have ignored this phenomenon. Millions have admired the artworks covered in this book but relatively few know why they were commissioned, what was happening in the culture that produced them, or what they were meant to achieve. Even scholars who have studied them for decades often miss the big picture by viewing them in isolation from a larger story of human striving.

David’s Sling places into context ten canonical works of art executed to commemorate the successes of free societies that exerted political and economic influence far beyond what might have been expected of them. Fusing political and art history with a judicious dose of creative reconstruction, Victoria Coates has crafted a lively narrative around each artistic object and the free system that inspired it.

This book integrates the themes of creative excellence and political freedom to bring a fresh, new perspective to both. In telling the stories of ten masterpieces, David’s Sling invites reflection on the synergy between liberty and human achievement.

About this title

About the Author

Victoria C. G. Coates is a cultural historian who received her Ph.D. from The University of Pennsylvania specializing in Italian renaissance studies. She regularly contributes to conferences and symposia in the United States and Europe, and her work has appeared in The Sixteenth-Century Journal, Gazette des Beaux-Arts and Renaissance Studies. In 2007, Dr. Coates became the Director, of Research in the Office of Donald Rumsfeld and provided editorial support and content analysis for Mr. Rumsfeld's New York Times best-selling memoir Known and Unknown. In 2011, Dr. Coates joined the Rick Perry presidential campaign as an advisor for foreign policy. In 2013 she became a senior advisor for national security policy for the United States Senate. She has also been a senior fellow at the Commonwealth Foundation, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a consulting curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Dr. Coates lives in Philadelphia with her husband, two children and two dogs.

Edition details

• Publisher: Encounter Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1594037213
• ISBN 13: 9781594037214
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 368