Reaktion Books London (Over 2,900 results)

Paperback. Condition: Good. First published 2014. The book is in good condition with a sturdy binding. The cover shows minor wear, including slight scuffing and a small mark on the lower spine. The pages are clean and free from inscriptions or library markings. No dust jacket is present. unknown (no dust jacket visible).…

Paperback. Condition: Good. Ex-library copy with usual markings.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Now in paperback, this book describes ten women over the past three hundred years who have found walking essential to their sense of themselves, as people and as writers. Wanderers traces their footsteps, from eighteenth-century parsons daughter Elizabeth Carter who desired nothing more than to be taken for a vagabond in the wilds of southern England to modern walker-writers such as Nan Shepherd and Cheryl Strayed. For each, walking was integral, whether it was rambling for miles across the Highlands, like Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, or pacing novels into being, as Virginia Woolf did around Bloomsbury. Offering a beguiling view of the history of walking, Wanderers guides us through the different ways of seeing of being articulated by these ten pathfinding women. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition First Printing. 8vo. 296 pages, indexed. Hardcover with a blue and black dust jacket. Light wear to the jacket. A sound copy and clean within.

Hardback. Condition: As new. dj. book.

Hardback. Condition: As new. 304 pp. dj. book.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. 256 pp. Objekt. book.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Cemeteries, writes Mark C. Taylor, are where I go to commune with my ghosts. The journey to the cemetery is always solitary even when I am with people who are closest to me. In the graveyard, the we is dispersed and the I stripped bare. In Grave Matters, Taylors ghosts become our own. His thoughtful, poignant essay interweaves personal narrative, historical analysis, cultural commentary and philosophical reflection. Dietrich Christian Lammerts photographs show us the graves of the artists, architects, writers, philosophers and musicians who shaped Western culture; at once beautiful and disturbing, they suggest an alternative history of modernism and its precursors. Grave Matters raises difficult questions: What place do the modern greats have in the postmodern age? Who decided where and how they would be buried? Who wrote their epitaphs? What do their deaths, and their graves, tell us about their lives and suggest about our own? The words and images of Grave Matters inscribe the future that we all face, and to ponder this memento mori is to meet life anew. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. In the early twentieth century, American ragtime and the Parisian tango fuelled a dancing craze in Britain. Public ballrooms were built throughout the country, providing a glamorous setting for dancing. The new English style, defined in the 1920s and followed by the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the 1930s, ensured that ballroom dancing continued to be the most popular British pastime until the 1960s, rivalled only by the cinema.This book explores the vibrant history of ballroom and Latin dancing: the dances, lavish venues, competitions and influential instructors. It also traces the decline of couple dancing and its resurgence in recent years with the hugely popular TV shows Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with the Stars.Have you ever watched Strictly Come Dancing and wondered about the history of ballroom and Latin dancing? If so, Hilary French has provided an authoritative and accessible introduction.Frenchs richly detailed book is thoroughly recommended for anyone intrigued by the social history of dancing. BBC History magazineFascinating.tells the history of dance from the very beginning.an essential read. Dance News A tune-filled, light-footed peoples history of ballroom dancing. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. From swimming alongside our kayaks, canoes, coracles and boats to gliding through the shadowy waters of remote seas, seals, with their playful and inquisitive natures, have long interacted with humans and played a part in our shared history with animals. Seal explores the natural and cultural history of this marine mammal who has piqued and delighted human interest since ancient times, from performing in Roman spectacles to appearing in contemporary zoos and animal rescue centres. Seals, sea lions, fur seals and walruses are so distinctive that biologists have classified them as members of a unique order, the Pinnipedia, yet our relationship with each distinctive seal species varies. We have for centuries hunted some seals for their skin, oil and meat. In the twentieth- and twenty-first century the hunt has become a focus for global protest, and the white-furred baby seal has evolved into one of the most powerful symbols for animal welfare and conservation. From selkie legends to the seal hunt, this beautifully illustrated book will both enlighten and captivate readers. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Whales are the largest animals ever to have lived on the earth: the longest recorded was over 33 metres long, the heaviest more than 171,000 kgs; a large Blue Whale's tongue alone can weigh more than an elephant. Whales can stay underwater for more than an hour, some speculate that they can live for up to 200 years, and they are among the most intelligent animals known to humanity. Whale recounts the evolutionary and ecological background, as well as the cultural history, of these extraordinary mammals, long persecuted and now celebrated throughout the world. From the tales of Jonah and Brendan the Navigator to Moby Dick and recent discoveries of cetacean songs and culture, Joe Roman looks at the role of the whale in human history, mythology, art, literature, commerce and science. Illustrated with Stone Age carvings, medieval broadsheets and colour underwater photographs, Whale shows how our perception of these animals has changed over the centuries: a hundred years ago, a stranded whale was usually greeted with flensing knives; now people bring boats and harnesses to return a wayward creature to the sea. Written by an author with vast experience of the subject, Whale will appeal to all those interested in whales and the conservation of the oceans, as well as anyone studying cultural history and the natural sciences. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. In A Philosophy of Sport Steven Connor offers a new philosophical understanding of sport in its own terms, in distinction to previous writing on the philosophy of sport that has tended to see sport as a kind of testing ground for philosophical theories devised to deal with other kinds of problems of ethics, aesthetics or logical categorization. In order to define what sport essentially is and means, Connor presents a complete grammar of sport, isolating and describing its essential elements, including the characteristic spaces of sport, the nature of sporting time, the importance of sporting objects like bats and balls, the methods of movement in sport, the roles of rules and chance, and what it really means to cheat and to win. Defined as games that involve bodily exertion and exhaustion, sports simultaneously require constraint and the ability to overcome it. Sport, argues Connor, is a fundamental feature of modern humans. It is shown to be one of the most powerful ways in which we negotiate the relationship between the human and natural worlds. Encompassing a huge range of different sports, and enlisting the help of Hegel, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Adorno, Sartre, Ayer, Deleuze and Serres, A Philosophy of Sport will inform, surprise and delight thoughtful athletes and sporty philosophers alike. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Transport Design is the first design history to investigate the experience of travel, analysing the vehicle from the passengers and drivers points of view. Gregory Votolato takes us inside a wide range of vehicles, from buses and limousines to dugout canoes and superferries, to aircraft such as the Graf Zeppelin and the Apollo spacecraft. Organised in three parts - air, land and sea - Transport Design shows how the design of a vehicle shapes our experience of the journey, from home to work, or from the earth to the stars. In an authoritative yet accessible style, Votolato explores the relationship between mass transportation and the travel experience, taking into account the pressures of global commerce and global warming, and argues for a radical reappraisal of how and why we travel. Themes explored include comfort, safety, technology, style, economics, customization and entertainment, acknowledging along the way the contributions of important individuals, such as entrepreneur George Mortimer Pullman and the ship designer Dorothy Marckwald. Throughout, Votolato encourages us to see and to question our travel experiences in relation to the design of the vehicles in which we travel. Apparent banalities, such as the travel seat, are revealed as having great significance: from Theodore Woodruffs nineteenth-century railway sleeping compartments to Marc Newsons sleeping pods for long-haul flyers, or todays ergonomically contoured and electronically adjustable car seats, furniture designed for transportation has consistently led the furnishings of homes and offices in the technology they employ to provide personally tailored comfort, the Holy Grail of transport design. For the reader interested in how we travel, or for the designers of our future vehicles, Gregory Votolato provides an insightful, readable and often entertaining account of two centuries of travel design. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Cat traces the relationship between humans and the cat from its original domestication in ancient Egypt c. 2000 BC, through the centuries as a utilitarian rodent catcher, its gradual acceptance as a charming and amiable pet, and its present status as a companion on a par with the dog. Long before people valued cats, however, they recognized something special about them. Their graceful, fluid movements, and their self-detachment even as they live in our homes, seems to indicate strange, even supernatural powers. The peculiar fascination of the cat, indeed, is the diversity of images it projects - at once sweet and ferocious, affectionate and independent, elegant and earthy, cosily domestic and eerie. This highly illustrated book, now available in B-format, has a great deal to offer the enormous number of people who like and are interested in cats. Unlike many other cat books, it offers substantial and accurate information about the history of cats and their presentation in literature and art. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. In recent years, discontent with the monarchy has regularly made itself felt in both Britain and the Commonwealth. Whilst a number of important studies have scrutinized the pomp and circumstance surrounding the British royal family, radical opposing tendencies the tradition of anti-monarchism have been neglected. For some historians, this current of English republicanism has simply never existed. Beginning his controversial book with the reign of George III and ending with the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Antony Taylor argues that in fact debates about royalty in Britain have always included an anti-monarchist element. At a moment when political issues of key importance to Britains future European integration, the social and economic ramifications of Labours election victory, devolution in Scotland and Wales, the monarchys private woes vs. their public face, reform of the House of Lords are forcing members of the public and politicians alike to take a long, hard look at their governing institutions, Taylors lively study is particularly timely. Touching on the historical antecedents to the present crises, his book reconsiders English notions of republicanism, the Cromwellian legacy of the radical politics of the nineteenth-century reform movement, radicalisms relationship with Liberalism, and the hostility of reformers to the House of Lords. It also surveys republican traditions in the former colonies, with special attention paid to Australia. A significant contribution to the debate on the present crisis in the House of Windsor, Down with the Crown seeks to modify widely held assumptions about the historical failure of radicals to contest monarchy in an effective and lasting manner. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Portraiture as a genre is receiving increased attention at the same time that public curiosity about science is reaching unprecedented levels. Published to coincide with a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from 14 April 17 September 2000, and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, from 27 September 10 December 2000, Defining Features brings portraiture and science together. Ludmilla Jordanovas lucid text reflects on the nature of the relationship between art, science, medicine and technology by focusing on a selection of portraits that spans more than three centuries. Illustrated with likenesses of such notable personalities as Edward Jenner, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Dorothy Hodgkin, and encompassing a variety of media from paintings and medals to bookmarks and key rings, Defining Features charts changing attitudes towards medical practice and scientific investigation, as well as exploring how notions of gender, heroism, popularization and celebrity have affected the publics understanding of how researchers do their work. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. On 4 May 2000, an email that read kindly check the attached LOVELETTER was sent from Philippines. Attached was a virus, the Love Bug, and within days it had paralysed banks, broadcasters and businesses across the globe. The age of Crime Dot Com had begun. Geoff White charts the astonishing development of hacking, from its birth among the ruins of the Eastern Bloc to its coming of age as the most pervasive threat to our connected world. He takes us inside the workings of real-life cybercrimes, revealing how the tactics of high-tech crooks are now being harnessed by nation states. From Ashley Madison to election rigging, Crime Dot Com is a thrilling account of hacking, past and present, and of what the future might hold. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Trade paperback. Condition: Fine. Contains: Unspecified. Critical Lives. Includes Unspecified. Audience: General/trade.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. It is probably not surprising to learn that the modern craze for running is not new: our species has been running since we were able to stand upright. What may be surprising, however, are the many ways and reasons we have performed this painful, exhausting and yet exhilarating activity down the ages. In this original, humorous and almost improbable world history, Thor Gotaas brings us many unusual and curious stories showing the remarkable diversity of running, from earliest times to the immense popularity of running today at athletics meetings, world championships and Olympic games. Amongst the myriad characters the author describes are King Shulgi of Mesopotamia, who four millennia ago boasted about his ability to maintain high speeds while running long distances, and once claimed to have run from Nippur to Ur, a distance of not less than 160 kilometres. In ancient Egypt the pharaoh had to run to prove his vitality and to hold on to power; Norwegian Vikings exercised by running races against animals; and then there are the little-known naked runs, whore runs, endurance tests at bars, backward runs, monk runs, snowshoe runs, the Incas ingenious infrastructure of professional runners and the running culture of Native Americans. In this unique book Gotaas has written a world history that will come as a revelation to everyone who reads it. It will appeal to all who wish to know more about why the ancients shared our love, and hatred, of this physically demanding yet spiritually rewarding pastime. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Food has always been a favourite subject of the worlds artists, from still-lifes by Matisse and Picasso to the works of Claes Oldenberg and Andy Warhol. But how do artists eat? The Modern Art Cookbook provides a window into how both great and lesser-known modern artists, writers and poets ate, cooked, depicted and wrote about food. A cornucopia of life in the kitchen and in the studio throughout the twentieth century and beyond, the book explores a wide-ranging panoply of artworks of food, cooking and eating from Europe and the Americas from the early moderns through the Impressionists, Symbolists, Cubists, Futurists and Surrealists up to todays art as well as writing about food from contemporary novelists, writers and poets. Mary Ann Caws supplies numerous delicious modern art recipes, from Frida Kahlos Veracruz-style red snapper to David Hockneys strawberry cake and Claude Monets madeleines, exploring the parallels between the art of cuisine and the visual and verbal arts. The Modern Art Cookbook illuminates the significance of particular ingredients and dishes in the lives of some of the worlds greatest artists, providing a feast for the eyes and the mind as well as the palate. Beautifully illustrated and often surprising, this compilation is a joyous guide to the art of food. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Translated by Mark Treharne From Belleville to Passy, from Montmartre to La-Butte-aux-Cailles, from Antony to Saint-Ouen - Jacques Reda is a traveller in his own city of Paris. In the tradition of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, he is a nervous, rather unleisurely flaneur, unsettling and subverting preconceived ideas about travel and home. The Ruins of Paris echoes with the footsteps and the words of a wanderer by turns gloomy, curious, troubled, elated, angry, tender and confused (and sometimes all these things at once). We are led through the arrondissements and suburbs of Paris and beyond in a journey that moves to the rhythm of walking, of trains, to the hopeful tempo of upbeat jazz. Reda the wanderer is forever on the move: he constantly sets off, stops, begins afresh, treasuring movement itself while journeying from place to place. Journeys that are at once exhilarating and familiar, journeys that mirror life itself and a world that ceaselessly rises anew from its own ruins. Jacques Reda's book is both a poetic meditation on Paris and a haunting companion to its views and moods. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. …

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Is a secret and corrupt Illuminati conspiring to control world affairs and bring about a New World Order? Was Donald Trump a victim of massive voter fraud? Is Elizabeth II a shape-shifting reptilian alien? Who is doing all this plotting? In Hope and Fear, Ronald H. Fritze explores the fringe ideas and conspiracy theories people have turned to in order to make sense of the world around them, from myths about the Knights Templar and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel to Nazis and the occult, the Protocols of Zion and UFOs. As Fritze reveals, when conspiracy theories, myths and pseudo-history dominate a societys thinking, facts, reality and truth fall by the wayside. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. …

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The notion of taking a seaside holiday has only existed since the 18th century, when it was slowly becoming accepted that fresh air and sea water are good for health. Since then, a vast array of seaside resorts to suit all budgets has been developed in all areas of the world along with fairgrounds, piers, holiday camps, boardwalks, swimming pools and casinos. In addition, the seaside has seen the development of a variety of distinctive architectures, from the smallest beach hut to the grandest of hotels. In Designing the Seaside, Fred Gray provides a history of seaside architecture from the 18th century to the present day. He covers the formal and informal design processes involved in major buildings as well as ephemeral structures from piers and pavilions to resort parks and open spaces, to shops selling candy floss. While the book's chief focus is Britain, it also contains numerous examples from the USA, Europe and the Far East. Seaside architecture often assumes iconic cultural status that defines either specific resorts (the Blackpool Tower, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton) or the nature of a holiday by the coast (the pier and holiday camp). The development of the seaside has also involved transforming existing landscapes: what were once perceived as marginal or valueless sites cliffs, sand dunes and marsh were reclaimed for resorts and often developed into good quality, even exotic towns. Featuring informative and often entertaining photographs, architectural drawings, guidebooks, postcards and railway and publicity posters, this book provides a thoroughly readable as well as visually fascinating account of changing attitudes to holiday-making and its setting. Gray explores questions of taste, fashion, class and gender and particularly how the seaside became a hotbed for issues of morality and sexuality from bathing machines to beauty pageants. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The numbers involved when it comes to discussing stars, galaxies and the inconceivably vast tracts of empty space between them are staggering. With hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe, all of varying shapes, sizes and ages each containing hundreds of billions of suns at first glance our universe appears frustratingly unknowable, and yet it is captivating to explore. As a species we have only recently come to appreciate that our Milky Way is just one of myriad galaxies spread throughout the universe, with modern scientific breakthroughs forcing dramatic re-evaluations of our place in the immense cosmos. Our knowledge is growing daily and the pace of research continues to accelerate but we are still far away from from a complete understanding of how the galaxies came to be, and the processes that shaped them. Written by an active researcher in the field, Galaxy: Mapping the Cosmos tells the rich scientific story of galaxy evolution and observation discoveries of spiral nebulae, the nature of galaxies and the current World Model. Astronomer James Geach takes us on a tour of what is currently known and unknown, discussing why the ancient science of astronomy continues to fascinate humanity. Appealing to all readers interested in astronomy and cosmology, and featuring 100 colour illustrations, Galaxy explores the enigma of our cosmic habitat, chronicling how our home in the universe came to be. To view some sample pages from Galaxy by James Geach please click here. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Allergy truly is a modern malady. Only one hundred years ago, the term allergy was unknown, and diseases subsequently identified as allergic in nature, such as asthma, hayfever, eczema and food intolerance, were routinely considered to be rare, non-fatal conditions primarily afflicting the cultured and civilized classes of Western society. By the closing decade of the twentieth century, however, allergy had acquired greater medical, political, socio-economic and cultural significance. Increasingly perceived by clinicians, the media and the public as widespread and potentially fatal conditions, allergies became a distinct clinical specialism, generated new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies, and, in the process, created a lucrative market for international pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food industries. Charting entirely new territory in the social history of medicine, Mark Jacksons book offers critical insights not only into the emergence of new categories of illness in the modern period but also into the historical geography of disease. In doing so, it presents a new perspective on the history of health, medicine and the environment and provides a challenging commentary on the global politics, economics and ideologies of health care in the civilized and industrialized modern world. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Dogs are perhaps our most popular pets, and certainly one of the best-loved of all animals. They are not only humanitys best friend, they are also its oldest: burial sites dating back 12,000 years indicate that dogs moved alongside prehistoric peoples before, during and after both species settled the world. The story of the canine has been fundamentally entwined with that of humanity since the earliest times, and this ancient and fascinating story is told in Susan McHughs Dog. This book unravels the debate about whether dogs are descended from wolves, and moves on to deal with canines in mythology, religion and health, dog cults in ancient and medieval civilizations as disparate as Alaska, Greece, Peru and Persia, and traces correspondences between the histories of dogs in the Far East, Europe, Africa and the Americas. Dog also examines the relatively recent phenomenon of dog breeding and the invention of species, as well as the canines role in science fact and fiction; from Laika, the first astronaut, and Pavlovs famous conditioned dogs, through to science fiction novels and cult films such as A Boy and his Dog. Susan McHugh shows how dogs today contribute to human lives in a huge number of ways, not only as pets and guide dogs but also as sources of food in Asia, entertainment workers, and scientific and religious objects. Dog reveals how we have shaped these animals over the millennia, and in turn, how dogs have shaped us. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. From Salvador Dali to Walt Disney, animals have been a constant yet little-considered presence in film. Indeed, it may come as a surprise to learn that animals were a central inspiration to the development of moving pictures themselves. In Animals in Film, Jonathan Burt points out that the mobility of animals presented technical and conceptual challenges to early film-makers, the solutions of which were an important factor in advancing photographic technology, accelerating the speed of both film and camera. The early filming of animals also marked one of the most significant and far-reaching changes in the history of animal representation, and has largely determined the way animals have been visualized in the twentieth century. Burt looks at the extraordinary relation-ship between animals, cinema and photography (including the pioneering work of Eadweard Muybridge and Jules-Etienne Marey) and the technological developments and challenges posed by the animal as a specific kind of moving object. Animals in Film is a shrewd account of the politics of animals in cinema, of how movies and video have developed as weapons for animal rights activists, and of the roles that animals have played in film, from the avant-garde to Hollywood. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Though today largely dormant, volcanoes continue to erupt across the world, reminding us of their sheer physical power. In Volcano, James Hamilton explores the cultural history generated by the violence and terrifying beauty of volcanoes. He describes the reverberations of early eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna in Greek and Roman myth. Volcanoes have long been subjects in art the earliest known wall painting of an erupting volcano was painted in 6,200 BCE and Hamilton shows that volcanoes continue to influence the artistic imagination, as seen, for example, in the distinctive colours of Andy Warhol and Michael Sandles exploding mountains. Including works by famous artists, such as Salvator Rosa, Wright of Derby, Hokusai and Hiroshige, as well as previously little-known paintings, prints, drawings and photographs, this richly illustrated book will appeal to anyone interested in the science as well as the artistic impact of these spectacular natural phenomena. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Hardbound. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Octavo in dust jacket, 176 pp., b/w photos and drawings, references, select bibliography, index.

Softbound. Condition: Very Good. First English language edition. Octavo, glossy paper covers with flaps, 340 pp., b/w and color illustrations throughout, notes, index Translated from the German by Helen Atkins. A very high quality introduction to the history and topography of Tel Aviv.