Just as the new technology of photography was emerging throughout the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, it caught hold in the scenic Adirondack region of upstate New York. Young men and a few women began to experiment with cameras as a way to earn their livings with local portrait work. From photographing individuals, some expanded their subject matter to include families and groups, homes, streetscapes, landmarks, workplaces, and important events—from town celebrations to presidential visits, train wrecks, floods, and fires. These photographers from within and just beyond the park’s borders, as well as those based in the urban areas from which tourists came to the Adirondacks, have been central in defining the region. Adirondack Photographers, 1850–1950 is a comprehensive look at the first one hundred years of photography through the lives of those who captured this unique rural region of New York State. Svenson’s fascinating biographical dictionary of more than two hundred photographers is enriched with over seventy illustrations. While the popularity of some of these photographers is reflected in the number of their images held in the collections of the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and the Getty Museum, little is known about the diverse backgrounds of the individuals behind their work. A compilation of captivating stories, Adirondack Photographers provides a vivid, intimate account of the evolution of photography, as well as an unusual perspective on Adirondack history.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award The real story behind the major motion picture The Monuments Men. The cast of characters includes Hitler and Goering, Gertrude Stein and Marc Chagall--not to mention works by artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Pablo Picasso. And the story told in this superbly researched and suspenseful book is that of the Third Reich's war on European culture and the Allies' desperate effort to preserve it. From the Nazi purges of "Degenerate Art" and Goering's shopping sprees in occupied Paris to the perilous journey of the Mona Lisa from Paris and the painstaking reclamation of the priceless treasures of liberated Italy, The Rape of Europa is a sweeping narrative of greed, philistinism, and heroism that combines superlative scholarship with a compelling drama.

Lily Price Hamersley became, with her 1888 marriage to the eighth Duke of Marlborough, the highest-ranking American peeress in England and the first American duchess in fifty years. The duke was one of three distinguished, but, alas, short-lived husbands of this beauty from Troy, New York. Her first husband, Louis Hamersley, was a patrician New Yorker who left her an affluent widow at the age of twenty-eight. Her second was the brilliant but "wicked," divorced, and socially outcast Duke of Marlborough--brother-in-law to Jennie Churchill, uncle to Winston, and father to the first husband of Consuelo Vanderbilt. Lily's third choice was an ebullient Anglo-Irish lord, William de la Poer Beresford, a horseracing enthusiast whose popularity has been likened to that of modern film stars. In the course of a surprising life, Lily knew triumph and heartbreak while proving herself a woman of self-confidence, optimism, and remarkable resilience. Lily's "three marriages, her confident ease in moving into impossibly complicated and exalted social realms, and her decades of dealing with legal complexities related to wills, estates, and trusts make her story read like a newly discovered Edith Wharton novel. The history of the fairytale years when Lily became the Duchess of Marlborough and a dear friend of Winston Churchill is immensely readable and fascinating." Eric Homberger, emeritus professor of American Studies, University of East Anglia, and author of Mrs. Astor's New York: Money and Social Power in a Gilded Age "This entrancing portrait of a conventional American girl who made three extraordinary marriages draws on society papers and women's magazines as well as archives, court records and private papers to create a lively and vivid picture of social elites on both sides of the Atlantic during the late nineteenth century." Sally Mitchell, author of Daily Life in Victorian England and The New Girl: Girls' Culture in England, 1880-1915

- An important photo book that visually documents student life at Oxford University during the 1980s- The major work of award-winning photographer Dafyyd Jones- A powerful record of the future British establishment"I had access to what felt like a secret world. It was a subject that had been written about and dramatized but I don't think any photographers had ever tackled before. There was a change going on. Someone described it as a 'last hurrah' of the upper classes." - Dafydd Jones Oxford University at the start of the eighties, rife with black ties and ballgowns. A change was on its way - best described by a newspaper as 'the Return of the Bright Young Things'. At this time, Oxford University was synonymous with the wealthy, the powerful and the privileged. Many of the young people in these pictures moved on to have careers in the establishment including Boris Johnson and David Cameron. In these photographs, however, their youth is undeniable: teenagers in full suits celebrate the rise of Thatcher in England and Reagan in America, in between punting on the river, chasing romance and partying through the night. "It was Thatcher's Britain, a period of celebration for those that had money" - Dafydd Jones The Oxford Years shows a world that has been written about and dramatized, yet never photographed. Affectionate and critical, it pokes affectionate fun at its subjects while celebrating English eccentricity. From the architectural marvels of the colleges to misty mornings along the river at dawn, this is Oxford at its most beautiful - and the students of the 1980s at their most raw and honest.

Contemporary sculptor Aron Demetz uses traditional techniques to create electrifying pieces in conversation with works of antiquity. Working primarily in wood, and specifically with basswood, cedarwood, and sequoia, Aron Demetz uses this traditional material to highlight man's relationship to nature. This volume compares Demetz's works with classical sculpture, opening a fascinating dialogue between modern and ancient forms and techniques. Hailing from Northern Italy, Demetz employs regional 17th-century woodcarving techniques in his figurative works. He updates those techniques by layering his sculptures with foils or resin or by charring the artworks which powerfully alter the original wood in ways that are both haunting and familiar. This volume, complete with beautiful reproductions and scholarly essays, offers an in-depth look into Demetz's oeuvre.

Including an international directory of museum permanent collection catalogs.