Reaktion Books

Tokyo today is one of the world's mega-cities, andthe centre of a scintillating, hyper-modern culture - but not everyone is aware of its past. Founded in 1590 as the seat of the warlord Tokugawa family, Tokyo, then called `Edo', was the locus of Japanese trade, economics and urban civilization until 1868, when it mutated into Tokyo and became Japan's modern capital. This beautifully illustrated book presents important sites and features from the rich history of Edo, drawn from contemporary sources such as diaries, guidebooks and woodblock prints. These include the huge bridge on which the city was centred, the vast castle of the shogun, sumptuous Buddhist temples, bars, kabuki theatres and the Yoshiwara, Edo's famous red-light district.

In the first book devoted to representations of Jesus Christ in contemporary photography, Nathalie Dietschy presents a rich range of images from the 1980s to the present day. Acclaimed photographers such as Catherine Opie, Wang Qingsong, Joan Fontcuberta, Greg Semu, Andres Serrano, David LaChapelle, Renee Cox and Bettina Rheims offer fresh - and often provocative - depictions of Christ that address issues from race to sexuality to gender. The Figure of Christ in Contemporary Photography guides the reader through these alternative representations, analysing the complex social, political and cultural issues that the photographs bring to light.

One of the common features of communist regimes is the use of art for revolutionary means. Posters in particular have served as beacons of propaganda - vehicles of coercion, instruction, censure and debate - in every communist nation. They have promoted the authority of state and revolution, but have also been used as an effective means of protest. This is the first truly global survey of the history and variety of communist poster art. Each chapter is written by an expert in the field and examines a different region of the world: Russia, China, Mongolia, Eastern Europe, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba. This beautifully illustrated, comprehensive survey will appeal to a wide audience interested in art, history and politics.

If there is anything that distinguishes us from animals, it is our ability to understand that such a thing as the future exists and our willingness to try and look into it. But how have people through the ages gone about making predictions? What were their underlying assumptions, and what methods did they use? Have increased computer power and the newest algorithms improved our success in anticipating the future, or are we still only as good (or as bad) at it as our ancestors? From the ancients watching the flight of birds to the murky activities of Google and Facebook today, Seeing into the Future gives us an insight into the past, present and future of prediction.

What does it mean to be human? And what, if anything, does it have to do with being a member of the animal species Homo sapiens? This dazzling book gets to the very heart of our rather unscientific motivations and prejudices, showing how they are of great use in resolving the world's biggest problems. From beasts to aliens, widespread but often problematic links with six other beings are explored. Deep philosophical questions are tackled, including humanity's common purpose, life's meaning and what it means to be accepted as part of a community. Global in its outlook and illustrated by stunning pictures, Human is a powerful, funny and iconoclastic antidote to post-humanism.

Miracles of Our Own Making is a historical overview of magic in the British Isles, from the ancient peoples of Britain to the rich and cosmopolitan landscape of contemporary paganism. We explore the beliefs of the Druids, the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, the alchemy of the Elizabethan court and the witch trials. We encounter grimoires, ceremonial magic and the Romantic revival of arcane deities. The influential and well-known - the Golden Dawn, Wicca and figures such as Aleister Crowley - are considered alongside the everyday `cunning folk' who formed the magical fabric of previous centuries. Ranging widely across literature, art, science and beyond, Liz Williams debunks many of the prevailing myths surrounding magical practice, past and present, while offering a rigorously researched and highly accessible account of what it means to be a pagan today.

Today, simple living is a rallying cry for anti-consumerists, environmentalists and anyone concerned with humanity's effect on the planet. But what is so revolutionary about a simple life? Why are we so fascinated with simplicity today? Why do we still sometimes resist simplifying our lives? A Philosophy of Simple Living brings together an array of people, practices and movements, from Henry David Thoreau to Steve Jobs, and from Cynics and Quakers to voluntary simplicity and degrowth. Written in elegant, spare prose, this book will inspire all who wish to simplify their lives and convince many that a good life is a simple life.

Great Economic Thinkers presents an accessible introduction to the lives and works of the most influential economists of modern times: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Alfred Marshall, Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, and Nobel Prize winners Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, John Forbes Nash Jr, Daniel Kahneman, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz. Free from jargon and equations, the book describes key economic concepts - from the role played by the division of labour to wages and rents, cognitive biases, game theory and liberalism - showing how they have come to shape our society today.

This new critical biography provides a complete picture of German novelist, playwright and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The book offers fresh, thought-provoking interpretations of all the major works, including novels such as The Sorrows of Young Werther and The Elective Affinities, plays such as Egmont and Iphigenia in Tauris, and Goethe's greatest work, Faust. Alongside these works the incidents of his life are analysed, including his love affairs and his meetings with the great people of the age, such as Napoleon Bonaparte. Jeremy Adler shows how Goethe's encyclopedic interest in many fields influenced later thinkers such as Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim and Susan Sontag. Goethe has often been called the last Renaissance man. This biography shows that Goethe was in fact the first of the moderns - a maker of modernity.

The most celebrated French storyteller of the nineteenth century, Guy de Maupassant was a master of the modern short story. Offering an intriguing picture of French life, the enduring appeal of his stories derives from understated artistry, extreme craftsmanship and the universality of his characters and their aspirations and misfortunes. In this insightful and compelling biography, the only one in English currently available, Christopher Lloyd situates Maupassant's life and work in the literary and social context of nineteenth-century France. Lloyd skilfully introduces the reader to Maupassant's most famous works, such as Boule de suif, Bel-Ami and Pierre et Jean, as well as highlighting the important stages and achievements of his life and legacy.

When he arrived in Moscow in 1851, a young Leo Tolstoy set himself three immediate aims: to gamble, to marry and to obtain a post. At that time he managed only the first. The writer's momentous life would be full of forced breaks and abrupt departures, from the death of his beloved parents to an abandonment of the social class into which he had been born. Andrei Zorin skilfully pieces together Tolstoy's life, offering an account of the novelist's deepest feelings and motives, and a brilliant interpretation of his major works, including the celebrated novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Claire Preston's Bee tells the busy story of our long, complex relationship with this industrious, much-admired insect. Moving from ancient political descriptions to Renaissance debates about monarchy, to the conversion of the virtuous and civil bee into the dangerous swarm of the Hollywood horror flick, and finally to the melancholy recognition that the modern decline of the bee is due to our use of harmful pesticides and destruction of the bee's habitat, this timely new edition could not arrive at a moment of greater buzz. Lively, engaging, and containing many fascinating bee facts, anecdotes, fables, and images, Bee is a sweeping, highly illustrated natural and cultural history of this familiar visitor to our gardens and parks. From beekeepers to anyone with an interest in bees' intricate, miniature societies, to all of us who enjoy honey on our toast, the appeal of Preston's exploration of how bees have woven themselves into the fabric of our culture is as expansive as the range and importance of these tiny workaholics themselves.

The most radical and divisive composer of the twentieth century, Arnold Schoenberg remains a hero to many, and a villain to many others. In this refreshingly balanced biography, Mark Berry tells the story of Schoenberg's remarkable life and work, situating his tale within the wider symphony of nineteenth- and twentieth-century history. Born in the Jewish quarter of his beloved Vienna, Schoenberg left Austria for his early career in Berlin as a leading light of Weimar culture, before being forced to flee in the dead of night from Hitler's Third Reich. He found himself in the United States, settling in Los Angeles, where he would inspire composers from George Gershwin to John Cage. Introducing all of Schoenberg's major musical works, from his very first compositions, such as the String Quartet in D Major, to his invention of the twelve-tone method, Berry explores how Schoenberg's revolutionary approach to musical composition incorporated Wagnerian late Romanticism and the brave new worlds of atonality and serialism. Essential reading for anyone interested in the music and history of the twentieth century, this book makes clear Schoenberg changed the history of music forever.

This concise yet thorough critical biography throws new light on the work of German novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and social critic Thomas Mann. It also offers a fresh look at the value of his short stories. Looking closely at how Mann's brother Heinrich as well as the work of philosophers (notably Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Goethe) influenced Mann's writing, Herbert Lehnert and Eva Wessell reveal how Mann's fictional worlds criticized the prevailing bourgeois order, and how his first novel, Buddenbrooks, signaled the need for change. Lehnert and Wessell also explore the lasting significance of such groundbreaking works as The Magic Mountain, Death in Venice, and Doctor Faustus, a novel that, in view of fascism, asks whether the bourgeois culture of the individual has not become diseased. Thomas Mann also investigates Mann's political views, from his anti-Nazi speeches to his anti-McCarthyist activities. The book offers an engaging, fresh account of an essential German writer, one which illustrates how the context of Mann's life shaped his achievements.

In The Europe Illusion, Stuart Sweeney considers Britain's relationships with France and Prussia-Germany since the map of Europe was redrawn at Westphalia in 1648. A timely and far-sighted study, it argues that integration in Europe has evolved through diplomatic, economic, and cultural links cemented among these three states. Indeed, as wars became more destructive and economic expectations were elevated these states struggled to survive alone. Yet it has been rare for all three to be friends at the same time. Instead, apparent setbacks like Brexit can be seen as reflective of a more pragmatic Europe, where integration proceeds within variable geometry.

Georgia is the most Western-looking state in today's Near or Middle East and, despite having one of the longest, most turbulent histories in the Christian or Near Eastern world, no proper history of the country has been written for decades. Eminent historian Donald Rayfield redresses this balance in Edge of Empires, focusing not merely on the post-Soviet era, like many other books on Georgia, but on the whole of its history, accessing a mass of new material from the country's recently opened archives. Rayfield describes Georgia's swings between disintegration and unity, making full use of primary sources, many not available before in an English-language book. He examines the history of a country which, though small, stands at a crossroads between Russia and the Muslim world, between Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and is a dramatic example of state-building and, also, of tragic political mistakes.