Haunting postcard images of the non-Western world from a century ago. The antique postcards depicted here were acquired in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Western tourists, business people, traders, and colonialists. The circumstances in which the cards were sent, and the details of those who sent them, are largely lost. Yet the audience for collecting them has enjoyed a spectacular growth in recent years and includes not only those with the collecting instinct or the desire to travel but also artists, photographic historians, fashion and jewelry specialists, and designers everywhere. Once it was believed that by taking someone's portrait you stole that person's soul. Here, the human subjects have a powerful presence because they express a deep-seated connection with the land and customs that gave them their identities. Their stories are implicit in their eyes, their costumes, and their postures. Reproduced with complete fidelity, these postcards take us on a magical journey across the world in five travelogues, depicting Asia, the Arab Lands, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. The book is introduced by one of the greatest and most successful travel writers of our time.

The Postcard’s Radical Openness offers a groundbreaking exploration of what this multifaceted, double-sided open card entails and how it has affected our being in the world. With a holistic approach, it focuses on studying the postcard’s specific way of being and performing, a particular ontology that opens up what is constitutively implicated in such an apparently trivial artifact. The book, organized into four parts, meticulously unveils the postcard’s political, technological, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions, ending with a coda correlating the postcard’s radical openness to G. Klimt’s painting, Nuda Veritas (1899) in reference to the scope of truth. By examining the postcard’s complex worldwide history, its socio-cultural significance, and its global effect, the book reveals hidden stories shedding light on its impact on photography, printing, marketing, trade, and business practices and exposes the aesthetic, communicative, and ethical qualities that lie behind the enormous success of postcards at the turn of the 20th century. This comprehensive study is positioned as a thought-provoking invitation to scholars and students interested in material culture, media studies, and human interactions, as well as to history enthusiasts, art lovers, and postcard collectors. Offering a distinctive contribution, the book not only fills a void in the literature but also encourages readers to question and reflect on the transformative power inherent in the postcard's 'radical openness,' presenting a novel and unparalleled analysis of this seemingly trivial yet culturally significant object.

What gives beauty such fascinating power? Why is beauty so easy to recognize but so hard to define? Across cultures and continents and over the centuries the standards of beauty have changed but the desire to portray beauty, to praise beauty, and to possess beauty has never diminished. Icons of Beauty offers an enthralling overview of the most revered icons of female beauty in world art from pre-history to the present. From images of Eve to Cindy Sherman's self-portraits, from Cleopatra to Madonna, from ancient goddesses to modern celebrities, this interdisciplinary set offers fresh insight as to how we can use perceptions of beauty to learn about world cultures, both past and present. Each chapter looks at an individual work of art to pose a question about the power of beauty. What makes beauty modern? What is the influence of celebrities? How do women portray their own beauty in a different manner than men? In-depth profiles of the icons reveal how specific ideas about beauty were developed and expressed, offering a full analysis of their history, cultural significance, and lasting influence. In addition to renowned works of art, Icons of Beauty also looks at icons in literature, film, politics, and contemporary entertainment. Interdisciplinary and multicultural in its approach, chapters inside this set also feature sidebars on provocative topics and issues, such as foot binding and body adornment; myths and practices; opinions and interpretations; and even related films, songs, and even comic book characters. Generously illustrated, this rich set encompasses history, politics, society, women's studies, and art history, making it an indispensable resource for high school and college students as well as general readers.

David MacDougall argues for a new conception of how visual images create human knowledge in a world in which the value of seeing has often been eclipsed by words.

Poetry. Fiction. In days before selfies and social media, postcards were a ubiquitous feature of travel, providing both means of communication with friends and family while away, and souvenirs of journeys once back home. Even if not quite gone, they seem more than a little nostalgic now, as do many of the poems in Jeanne Griggs' new collection, POSTCARD POEMS. By choosing to present her poems as short notes that could fit on a postcard, she has opted for a formal brevity; and the conceit of holiday communication allows her to write both about place (so that her poems are often both ekphrastic and epistolary--a neat trick) and about the people in her life. Travel, of course, is always a journey through both exterior and interior spaces, physical and mental, and we witness both in these often wistful poems. A visit on Cape Cod with friends, women of a certain age, affords an opportunity to live like in the books, / without any of the fuss / of having to sustain anything / except ourselves. Children grow up over the span of these travels, despite her wishing she had caged them, holding onto the past. A third visit to Niagara Falls is the first without her son--the first time / you were too young to remember / and the second too old to want / to come along--who is now far off in Siberia on travels of his own. Iowa is a place equally exotic, known only from watching a baseball movie / ...until we left our daughter / there, and they drive long out of the way to visit the Field of Dreams site, And it was there, / just like we'd seen it, / in real life. Stopping South of the Border she buys picture postcards of this place on the way / to where we're actually going. That's a good description of the mosaic of life that is constructed out of these brief notes, a chronicle of stops along the way until, in the final poem, all future plans suspended... / we are / still saving up from our last trip.