With an alcohol content sometimes as high as 80 percent, absinthe was made by mixing the leaves of wormwood with other plants such as angelica root, fennel, coriander, hyssop, marjoram and anise for flavor. The result was a bitter, potent drink that became a major social, medical and political phenomenon during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; its popularity was mainly in France, but also in other parts of Europe and the United States, particularly in New Orleans. Absinthe produced a sense of euphoria and a heightening of the senses, similar to the effect of cocaine and opium, but was addictive and caused a rapid loss of mental and physical faculties. Despite that, Picasso, Manet, Rimbaud, Van Gogh, Degas and Wilde were among those devoted to its consumption and produced writings and art influenced by the drink. This work provides a history of "the green fairy", a study of its use and abuse, an exploration of the tremendous social problems (not unlike the cocaine problems of this century) it caused, and an examination of the extent to which the lives of talented young writers and artists of the period became caught up in the absinthe craze.

In the first third of the twentieth century, the publishing industry in the United Kingdom and the United States was marked by well-established and comfortable traditions pursued by family-dominated firms. The British trade was the preserve of self-satisfied men entirely certain of their superiority in the world of letters; their counterparts in North America were blissfully unaware of development and trends outside their borders. In this unique historical analysis, Richard Abel and Gordon Graham show how publishing evolved post-World War II to embrace a different, more culturally inclusive, vision.Unfortunately, even among the learned classes, only a handful clearly understood either the nature or the likely consequences of the mounting geopolitical tensions that gripped pre-war Europe. The world was largely caught up in the ill-informed and unexamined but widely held smug and shallow belief that the huge price paid in "the war to end all wars" had purchased perpetual peace, a peace to be maintained by the numerous, post-war high-minded treaties ceremoniously signed thereafter.The history presented here has as its principals a handful of those who fled to the Anglo-Saxon shores in the pre-World War II era. The remainder made their way to Britain and the United States following that war. They brought an entirely new vision of and energetic pursuit of the cultural role of the book and journal in a society, a vision which was quickly adopted and naturalized by a perspicacious band of post-war native-born book people.

Sculpture Off the Pedestal is a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process of 25 leading sculptors from the Renaissance to the present through their own words or those who knew them. Aiming to avoid dry-as-dust art histories, Sculpture Off the Pedestal puts old and modern master sculptors by the reader's side, emptying their heads about their work and their ways of thinking. The book is intended not only for the art student or art lover, but also for the untutored and those who think of art as a remote subject. Most art histories focus on painting. Chronicling the lives of sculptors in and out of their studios fills a gap.

The authors selected fifteen works from each of two textbooks for inclusion in a slide program. This supplemental resource book for teachers offers helpful teaching suggestions for each slide, along with correlated activities to help students understand and create art.