T. 4 : Universities since 1945. - 2011. - 661 p.

In the Paris art world of the 1920s, Georges Bataille and his journal "DOCUMENTS" represented a dissident branch of surrealism. Bataille--poet, philosopher, writer, and self-styled "enemy within" surrealism--used "DOCUMENTS" to put art into violent confrontation with popular culture, ethnography, film, and archaeology. "Undercover Surrealism," taking the visual richness of "DOCUMENTS" as its starting point, recovers the explosive and vital intellectual context of works by Picasso, Dali, Miro, Giacometti, and others in 1920s Paris. Featuring 180 color images and translations of original texts from "DOCUMENTS" accompanied by essays and shorter descriptive texts, "Undercover Surrealism" recreates and recontextualizes Bataille's still unsettling approach to culture. Putting Picasso's "Three Dancers" back into its original context of sex, sacrifice, and violence, for example, then juxtaposing it with images of gang wars, tribal masks, voodoo ritual, Hollywood musicals, and jazz, makes the urgency and excitement of Bataille's radical ideas startlingly vivid to a twenty-first-century reader. "Copublished by Hayward Gallery Publishing, London"

The Sword and the Shieldis based on one of the most extraordinary intelligence coups of recent times: a secret archive of top-level KGB documents smuggled out of the Soviet Union which the FBI has described, after close examination, as the "most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source." Its presence in the West represents a catastrophic hemorrhage of the KGB’s secrets and reveals for the first time the full extent of its worldwide network.Vasili Mitrokhin, a secret dissident who worked in the KGB archive, smuggled out copies of its most highly classified files every day for twelve years. In 1992, a U.S. ally succeeded in exfiltrating the KGB officer and his entire archive out of Moscow. The archive covers the entire period from the Bolshevik Revolution to the 1980s and includes revelations concerning almost every country in the world. But the KGB's main target, of course, was the United States.Though there is top-secret material on almost every country in the world, the United States is at the top of the list. As well as containing many fascinating revelations, this is a major contribution to the secret history of the twentieth century.Among the topics and revelations explored are: The KGB’s covert operations in the United States and throughout the West, some of which remain dangerous today. KGB files on Oswald and the JFK assassination that Boris Yeltsin almost certainly has no intention of showing President Clinton. The KGB’s attempts to discredit civil rights leader in the 1960s, including its infiltration of the inner circle of a key leader. The KGB’s use of radio intercept posts in New York and Washington, D.C., in the 1970s to intercept high-level U.S. government communications. The KGB’s attempts to steal technological secrets from major U.S. aerospace and technology corporations. KGB covert operations against former President Ronald Reagan, which began five years before he became president. KGB spies who successfully posed as U.S. citizens under a series of ingenious disguises, including several who attained access to the upper echelons of New York society.

For over a century, Africa has experienced a violent cycle of warfare. First came the wars of colonial conquest, then the armed struggles for independence, and fi nally a series of civil wars. These civil wars have many causes, including the struggle over artifi cial frontiers inherited from colonialism, friction and rivalry among different ethnic and religious groups, and the crude desire for power of some African leaders. During the Cold War, the situation was further exacerbated by intervention or “aid” from the former colonial powers and new superpowers. Although it has not been easy to prevent or contain these wars, increasingly efforts are being made by the United Nations, other international organizations, and African organizations such as the African Union to provide peacekeeping and provide care for refugees. For a continent that is poorly known and badly misunderstood to begin with, it is often hard to fi nd useful information about underlying situations, groups and people involved, and even the course of wars—which is why this Historical Dictionary of Civil Wars in Africa is such an important book. The chronology tracks when civil wars erupted or were resolved, and which ones still continue; the introduction puts the warfare into historical, political, and geographical context; the dictionary provides a wealth of information on each of the wars, the more prominent leaders involved (both those who make war and those who try to bring peace), liberation movements, and political parties and organizations; and the substantial bibliography presents indispensable information for those who want to know more.

Medieval Europe 814–1450 / ed.: K. M. Figg, J. B. Friedman, . - 524 p.

In style similar to American Decades and American Eras, each volume in this impressive reference set represents an era and each era is divided into the categories: architecture, dance, fashion, literature, music, philosophy, religion, theater, and visual arts. Within these categories are lists of important events, overviews, topics, significant people and documentary sources. Each volume begins with an era overview. Primary source documents are separated in gray boxes throughout the text. A wonderful resource useful for research in the arts and history!??Pennsylvania School Librarians Associations, May 2006

Critically examining the discourse of Indo-European scholarship over the past two hundred years, Aryan Idols demonstrates how the interconnected concepts of “Indo-European” and “Aryan” as ethnic categories have been shaped by, and used for, various ideologies. Stefan Arvidsson traces the evolution of the Aryan idea through the nineteenth century—from its roots in Bible-based classifications and William Jones’s discovery of commonalities among Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek to its use by scholars in fields such as archaeology, anthropology, folklore, comparative religion, and history. Along the way, Arvidsson maps out the changing ways in which Aryans were imagined and relates such shifts to social, historical, and political processes. Considering the developments of the twentieth century, Arvidsson focuses on the adoption of Indo-European scholarship (or pseudoscholarship) by the Nazis and by Fascist Catholics. A wide-ranging discussion of the intellectual history of the past two centuries, Aryan Idols links the pervasive idea of the Indo-European people to major scientific, philosophical, and political developments of the times, while raising important questions about the nature of scholarship as well.

The Second World War is considered the pivotal event of the twentieth century, and the Encyclopedia of World War II, by prolific military historian Axelrod, is a well-written and complete reference to the war for students and general readers. Not exhaustive, the reference covers the typical ideological, military, political, and social topics “most commonly sought by students and instructors”; and its entries are, as the introduction claims, “useful, relevant, and interesting.” Some 737 concise, descriptive, noninterpretive entries are arranged alphabetically, covering topics such as Aachen, Battle of; Bazooka; Chiang Kai-shek; Dachau concentration camp; Fascism; Lebensraum; Phony War; Waffen SS; and Yalta Agreement. Approximately 40 percent of the entries are biographical. Length ranges from 200 to 3,000 words, and larger entries, such as Aircraft carriers, include subheadings (in this case, describing the fleets of the chief combatants). Aircraft, British exemplifies the many technical summaries of the equipment of the war’s chief combatants. Entries for major battles and campaigns (El Alamein, Kursk, Stalingrad) range from 700 to 1,200 words, contain easy-to-read maps, and provide the tactical overview and strategic significance of the battle. Articles are cross-referenced and include short bibliographies. Although this may not be a necessary purchase for libraries that have the exhaustive five-volume Encyclopedia of World WarII: A Political, Social, and Military History (ABC-CLIO, 2005), its size and more-selective coverage make it a good choice for public, high-school, and undergraduate libraries.

Slang is language with its sleeves rolled up, colorful, pointed, brash, bristling with humor and sometimes with hostility. Now, in The Oxford Dictionary of Slang, John Ayto has brought together over 10,000 slang words and phrases common to 20th-century English, to provide a comprehensive and highly engaging guide to the most outspoken corner of our language. Unlike most such dictionaries, this volume is organized thematically, with slang words gathered under such headings as "the body and its functions" or "sustenance and intoxication." Within each section, the words are listed chronologically, starting with the century's earliest words and phrases and progressing right through to the present day, thus illuminating the development of slang and colloquial language over the last hundred years. Word origins and other interesting features of usage are given wherever possible, as are illustrative quotations from a wide range of authors. A comprehensive A Z index lists all words included in the dictionary, so you can find a particular word quickly. From "five-finger discount" to "forty-rod whiskey," here is an authoritative and up-to-date record of slang throughout the English-speaking world.