 Essential primer & intro to world of theory..., 2003-06-25
Sadly I've only come across this wonderful book (and its earlier companions) recently- a vast collection of key essays and theories relating to culture in the 20th Century. It certainly beats the **** out of a book like Beginning Theory, which is half the price but much, much shorter. A key book that should be owned by all undergraduates starting Uni operating in the wide remit of humanities. The essays/excerpts are short, easy to read & broken down into eight major sections and subsequent sub-sections. Seriously, this book is packed with the kind of thinking and quotations that should litter any university-standard essay- & also gives you a sample of certain writers- which could then be pursued from this wonderful starting point. The book has sections on: Classicism & Originality; Expression & the Primitive; Modernity; Cubism; Neo-Classicism & the Call to Order; Dissent & Disorder; Abstraction & Form; Utility & Construction; The Modern as Ideal; Realism as Figuration; Realism as Critique; Modernism as Critique; The American Avant-Garde; Individualism in Europe; Art&Society; Art&Modern Life; Modernist Art; Objecthood&Reductivism; Attitudes to Form; Critical Revisions; The Critique of Originality; Figures of Difference;& The Condition of History. Seriously you could easily read the lot in the first year at uni, setting you up greatly for the harder years that follow...Plenty of key cultural thinkers appear here, a brief survey of the contents pages offers Freud, Rilke, Kandinsky, Croce, Lenin, Wyndham Lewis, Braque, Picasso, Spengler, Duchamp, Man Ray, Tatlin, Klee, Jung, Alfred Rosenberg, John Reed, Trotsky, Breton, Bataille, Brecht, Adorno, Pollock, Sartre, Artaud, Lacan, Camus, Bacon, Schlesinger Jr, Lukacs, Barthes, Raymond Williams,Cage, Warhol, Robbe-Grillet, Derrida, Foucault, Mulvey, Jameson, Said, Baudrillard, Kristeva, Wollen, & just about every major theorist of the 20th Century. This book is excellent value and the ideal primer for anyone studying any subject relating to theory (pretty much most); only quibble would be the relatively fragile cover, which would require a plastic cover or be easily ruined with the amount of reference to this book that would no doubt occur. OWN!
BUY IT NOW!, 2006-04-16
I reluctantly bought this book believing it would join others on my bookshelf, however it has become my primary source of reference before starting any art essay. How did I manage before? For anyone with an interest in Fine Art this is a must have! I've noticed that it is difficult to obtain this book now -Phew! got my copy just in time. Seek it out and but it now!! This is one you really need!
You need this book., 2005-10-13
Absolutely no question.
If you are studying art or intend to then buy this book.
Now.
Don't hesitate.
It has just about all you need.
Worth its Weight in Gold!, 2008-03-31
This book is filled to the brim with 371, yes 371 individual sources/texts each with an introduction to contextualise each one. Using it for an essay or dissertation will provide you with quotes that you would not be able to find in other books as well as giving you some of the more obvious source which are great too. It is a big book at 1250 pages which was intimating at first when it dropped through the door but really quickly I discovered that its as good as having a whole library in one book which is just about portable.
This is a great book and when you start using it you will realise what a bargain it is too. Worth its weight in gold
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