Book Description
At last, an American history about working Americans: what they thought, what they did, what happened to them. Volume One takes us from conquest and colonization through industrial expansion, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Great Uprising of 1877
Customer Reviews:
oversimplifies history to serve ideological agenda, sometimes incoherent.......2006-07-14
I bought this book a few years ago on the recommendation of a professor of labor history. History is often told from the point of view of the "winners", so I thought it would be good to absorb a perspective that is not usually taught. I admit that all history is a form of narrative, and there are no "pure" facts in history since all narratives make value judgments at least implicitly. But some narratives "work" better than others; some narratives enshrine values that would be better for us to hold than others. Some ways of understanding the past are more helpful, and thus more correct, than others.
The narrative presented in this book is not very helpful for the same reason that ruling-class narratives are unhelpful: both are heroic narratives. The only difference is that those who play the role of hero and those who play the marginalized have switched places. History is far too complex of a process - of a story - to say that "so-and-so was responsible for such-and-such". In this case, we learn that poor laborers, minorities, women, and immigrants are "really" responsible for America's accomplishments. Of course, this is partially correct, for it is surely the case that we would not be where we are were it not for these groups. But to imply that educated white men - people like two of the authors of the book themselves - made little "real" contribution to America's accomplishments but instead were responsible for all of our social failings is preposterous. This is simply a swing of the pendulum to the opposite extreme. In fact, I think that the whole project of parcelling out persons into groups, and then telling a group-based historical narrative is problematic. Which group defines your identity?
The failing of this book is that it mistakes the the part for the whole, the necessary for the sufficient. A much better narrative that includes the marginalized and the working class can be found in Howard Zinn's *A People's History of the United States*.
I gave the book two stars instead of one because the writing is quite good - just like an absorbing historical fiction.
A labor perspective to American History.......2005-10-26
I think it is okay to have a specific perspective to U.S. History as long as it is stated within a specific discipline such as Social History of the U.S. or an Economic History of the United States. This book is somewhat misleading because it gives a hint of what this book is about a history of labor in the United States and its relationships to the economic forces of the various time periods it covers. That to me, is in the domain of Economic History of the United States. This book basically is an introduction to the economic history of the United States, eventhough, that is really not explicityly stated. It does do a good job of providing detailed descriptions of labor history in the U.S. But I do not think it should be used in a classroom where the students have not have had a generalized introduction into U.S. history; unless of course, the trend is to now slice American history, into specific topics, and provide that one specific aspect as a introduction to American history.
Who Built America Vol 2.......2000-10-05
The book takes a completely different view of our nation's history from the late 1800's through the late 19000's than the average history text book most of us read in high school. Side bars and tid bits add anecdotal highlights to the information covered in that section or chapter which keep it relevant and interesting. It was very refreshing to see things from the bottom up. i.e. What was happening with this or that wave of immigration that caused the City's and Urban areas to change in this way, that caused the political and religious environment to change in that way, that caused this person to be elected, that caused this law to be passed, that caused this backlash, that led to this conflict, that led to this resolution. Instead of - this war was faught and this official was elected and this country won. It is biased towards labor and labor's role in building this country, so if you want traditional conservative history, this isn't the book for you. But if you like to read some of the stuff they don't tell you in high-school history 101, this is it. I'll never look at labor disputes or the immigration question the same way again. I came away from the book with a greater understanding and retained more of how we got to the 21st century in America from the 19th century.
An excellent resource.......2000-03-29
When I saw this book, I bought it straightaway, because labor history gets short-shrift in American society. I'm sorry to see it's out-of-stock, but am unsurprised.
While this book is fairly mainstream in its orientation, it is very readable and thorough, covering the struggle of working people through the late 1800s to the early 1990s.
I consider this book a good starting point for people interested in working people's history. What makes it especially rich is the narrative flow and personal stories that appear throughout it, and the sidebars with songs and other miscellaneous information. This is the way a history book should be written.
An excellent source for US 20th century history!.......1999-07-03
Who Built America? Is an excellent look at US history in the 20th century from the foundation up. The authors provide relevant and insightful information about immigration, the working class, unions, and the political and military events that shaped our country. The events are thoroughly discussed in terms of cause and effect, and followed through with anecdotal side bars and highilights. Because the text follows a contextual historical line, the information is readily understood and retained. Who Built America? was used as the assigned text in a US History class I took. While I read it willingly as assigned in the class, it is a book I have returned to on numerous occasions since. I highly recommend Who Built America? for everyone and anyone who would like to know not just who was elected when, and what wars were fought with whom, but why and how it effects every one of us.
Average customer rating:
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Walker Evans & Company
Peter Galassi ,
Glenn Lowry ,
Stuart Davis ,
Edward Hopper ,
Roy Lichtenstein , and
Ed Ruscha
Manufacturer: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Evans, Walker
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Similar Items:
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Stephen Shore: American Surfaces
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The Photobook: A History - Volume 2
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The Photographer's Eye
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William Christenberry
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The Nature of Photographs
ASIN: 0870700324
Release Date: 2002-07-02 |
Book Description
Walker Evans' radical photography of the 1930s demonstrated that unembellished photographic fact could serve as a highly poetic language. These works expanded the potential of the art of photography and at the same time defined a lasting iconography that recognized advertising, movies, and car culture as central images of modern American identity. Walker Evans & Company focuses on Evans as a central figure in the arts of the 1920s and 30s, and includes works in photography and other mediums that influenced Evans or were influenced by him, or which resonate in a significant way with aspects of his imagery, sensibility, and style. Among the other artists whose work is featured are: Eugene Atget, Mathew Brady, Stuart Davis, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Edward Hopper, Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, August Sander, Andy Warhol, and Edward Weston. Published in conjunction with the second of three cycles of millennial exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Customer Reviews:
Photo Fine Art.......2007-05-21
Peter Galassi focuses on Evans as one of the great photographers of the twentieth century who also had a huge influence on many American photographers (and some contemporary graphic artists) and the ten visual chapters in this beautiful book provide a convincing case.
Photography as an art form has had a hard time proving it. Unlike fine art paintings, which exist as an entity, photography has mainly presented a visual record in many printed mediums (newspapers, magazines, advertising, packaging, posters) all seen by the public but not as art. Walker Evans helped to change that perception in America.
The first two chapters are interesting because Galassi features photographers who influenced Evans, especially Eugene Atget and his studies of Paris. The remaining eight each start with work by Evans then the chapter theme is carried on by other well-known photographers (and artists) who drew inspiration from the style and subject matter in his work. The hundred creative folk featured are a who's who of American photography since the 1940s.
Just over three hundred images are shown printed in an impressively fine screen (more than 250dpi) that brings out the wonderful detail in so many of them. Galassi contributes a fine introduction and each photographer get a comprehensive list of their photos in the back of the book. Overall I thought this was a fascinating survey American art photography whose origins clearly owe so much to Walker Evans.
***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
Book Description
This long-awaited reissue makes this indispensable reference available again in a revised and enlarged editions that catalogues, for the first time, all of Roy Lichtenstein's graphic oeuvre, including twenty-three prints created between 1993 and his death in 1997.
Average customer rating:
- should have been better
- Don't waste your money!
- DRAWING from the MODERN
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Drawing From The Modern
Agnes Martin ,
Gary Garrels ,
Carl Andre ,
Willem de Kooning ,
Eva Hesse ,
Jasper Johns ,
Ellsworth Kelly ,
Sol Lewitt ,
Roy Lichtenstein ,
Brice Marden ,
Barnett Newman ,
Claes Oldenburg ,
Jackson Pollock ,
Robert Rauschenberg ,
Richard Serra ,
Cy Twombly , and
Dan Flavin
Manufacturer: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing (Themes)
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Drawing Now: Eight Propositions
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Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting
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Infinite Possibilities: Serial Imagery In 20th-Century Drawings
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Experimental Drawing
ASIN: 0870706640
Release Date: 2005-03-15 |
Book Description
Visual art in the period following World War II witnessed landmark transformations. Today, drawing provides a powerful and vigorous device for reexamining the art of that period, and for renewing appreciation of the extraordinary achievements of well-known artists--and for discovering others. Even though the art of these years saw radical departures and shifts, drawing, which is among the most traditional of media, played a crucial and consistent role in the work of a great majority of the most significant artists. Drawing from the Modern, 1945-1975, surveys the drawing of the period through the unparalleled holdings of the drawings collection of The Museum of Modern Art. The postwar period saw the development of Abstract Expressionism in New York, followed by Pop art, Minimal art, and Conceptual art, and the Museum's collection has exceptional strength in these areas. Abstract drawings by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Barnett Newman open this volume, followed by works by such key figures as Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, and Cy Twombly. Next, drawings by Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Andy Warhol signal the arrival of a new figurative art at the forefront of creativity. But reductive and abstract art kept pace, and the Museum's collection offers a breathtaking array of drawings by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Richard Serra, and numerous others. What constitutes "progress" in art is questioned today, and it is no longer possible to see the development of art as a straight line, with synchronicity among places and geographies. But drawing, by its very nature, encourages established understandings to be examined and accepted values to be reappraised. Many of the artists represented here defy easy categorization, including Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, Vija Celmins, Bruce Conner, Ray Johnson, Jim Nutt, and Myron Stout. The resurgence of European art is represented by drawings by Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Piero Manzoni, Henri Michaux, Mario Merz, and Sigmar Polke, among others. A number the most important artists working in Latin America in the postwar period are also represented, including Jorge de la Vega, Gego, LeAn Ferrari, Halio Oiticica, and Mira Schendel. While neither the collection nor this volume is encyclopedic, the spirit and achievements of postwar art are distilled and amply celebrated here.
Customer Reviews:
should have been better.......2007-09-13
I purchased book 1 & 2 from Amazon. The illustrations are far too small to be a professionally represented art book from MOMA I've decided to save my money rather than pay out for the 3rd edition. It sounds a good buy from its description but I don't consider this trilogy to be very satisfactory.
Don't waste your money!.......2007-08-09
This is not a good artbook. The images are way too small to be satisfying. This book could have been great, but falls way short of its potential. Don't buy it, you will be disappointed.
DRAWING from the MODERN.......2006-12-27
DRAWING from the MODERN is the first of a three part series published by MOMA as catalogue to accompany the chronologically arranged exhibitions of their drawing collection; in part, celebration of the seventy fifth anniversary of the founding of the Museum.
This first book looks at the late nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. Care and preservation of these drawings dictate that they are displayed infrequently, paper being a delicate medium, subject to fading, discoloration and brittleness. The publication of this series then allows us to have at hand a history of drawings seldom seen, and a visual education demonstrating how problems of that era both evolved and worked themselves out.
The introduction by Jodi Hauptman is broad and well worth reading. Aside from her entertaining "end of art" stories, she addresses artists and process leading to the dissolution of prevalent notions: relationship of "mark" to "ground", took new form; spatial notions of an orderly page, questioned; the element of chance, explored as process; the ego relationship of an artist to work, dissolving. New imagery happened: collage, abstraction, grids, enhanced emotions, metaphors of feeling, the sublime re-imaged. New subjects explored brutalities of war, notions of "city", identity, the spiritual, and the abstract.
As perhaps with all process of art, the uncertainty of change brought forth much that is new. The 139 plates of drawings both demonstrate and give testimony by leading artists of the time to new era in process. Drawing as subject matter is fascinating. To be expected, the book is well printed. Of course, what is book one without book two and three?
Nancy Gutrich
Book Description
Whiz! Bang! Pop! Blam! Roy Lichtenstein has rendered everything from a comic-book cell and a warplane to a country landscape and a turkey in his trademark style drawn from printed advertisements and cartoons. A master mixer of popular culture and high art, Lichtenstein's painterly use of Benday dots and heavy outlines turned oil paintings into something they had never before come close to. This catalogue chronicles the evolution of his brushstroke and painterly style from the late 50s through the 90s, complete with photographs of the artist at work, and reproductions of paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Critic and scholar Dave Hickey's highly original and compelling personal essay challenges the way we traditionally think about Lichtenstein's art.
Book Description
This Monograph brings together all of Lichtenstein's Interior paintings, prints, and sculpture, along with source materials, drawings, and studies, illuminating the evolution of his ideas.
Customer Reviews:
An impressive and fully rounded presentation.......2001-06-07
Roy Lichtenstein is one of America's premier "pop art" painters and print makers. His style is instantly recognizable and powerfully influenced the popular culture of the last thirty years. Roy Lichtenstein: Interiors is an informative, wonderfully illustrated introduction and analysis of his "interior" paintings -- many published her for the first time. Robert Fitzpatrick is Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and effectively collaborates with Dorothy Lichtenstein, the late Leo Castelli, Sidney B. Felsen, and Cassandra Lozano to present an impressive and fully rounded presentation on the life, work, and artistic innovations of Lichtenstein. Roy Lichtenstein: Interiors is a very highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library American art history collections.
Blends social commentary with caricatures.......2001-05-18
Roy Lichtenstein has a distinctive pop art style which blends social commentary with caricatures: Interiors profiles many of his drawings of structures and space, with occasional people included in the sketches. Full-page color drawings accompany surveys of Lichtenstein's works and achievements.
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Roy Lichtenstein: Prints 1956-1997
Elizabeth Brown ,
Dave Hickey , and
Roy Lichtenstein
Manufacturer: Marquand Books, Inc./Museum of Art/Washington State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Similar Items:
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Roy Lichtenstein (Modern Masters Series, Vol. 1)
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Roy Lichtenstein: All About Art
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Roy Lichtenstein: Interiors
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Roy Lichtenstein
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Pop Art: Colour Library (Phaidon Colour Library)
ASIN: 0975566210
Release Date: 2005-10-15 |
Book Description
Think "Roy Lichtenstein" and you probably conjure up comic strip-based paintings and the colorful dots that comprise them. Lichtenstein intended his now iconic depictions of characters in tense, dramatic situations as commentaries on modern man's plight, in which the media--magazines, television, and advertisements--shapes everything, including our emotions. Many of the same concepts behind the artist's paintings apply to the significant number of prints he produced in the latter part of this life. Focused on works created from the mid-50s until his death in 1997, this exhibition catalogue gives a full overview of Lichtenstein's printmaking accomplishments. Accompanying reproductions of the artist's works are essays by two outstanding scholars: Dave Hickey, a MacArthur Award-winning writer on art and culture; and Elizabeth Brown, who wrote her thesis on Lichtenstein at Columbia University, under the tutelage of the late Kirk Varnedoe. Approximately 40 prints are illustrated in this elegant, intimately-scaled book, which highlights a specific body of work from one of the most innovative forces in post-World War II art.
Customer Reviews:
Superb illustrations, intelligent text!.......1999-09-09
Taschen triumphs again with a beautifully produced overview of Lichtenstein's entire career, with excellent reproductions of his major works and some less wellknown pieces. Essential.
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