World Art History

In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Monuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture.

Since it first opened on Broadway in September 1964, Fiddler on the Roof has constantly been onstage somewhere, including five Broadway revivals, four productions on London's West End, and thousands of schools, army bases, and countries from Argentina to Japan. Barbara Isenberg interviewed the men and women behind the original production, the film, and significant revivals.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the US-led invasion of Iraq, Suzy Hansen, who grew up in an insular conservative town in New Jersey, was enjoying early success as a journalist for a high-profile New York newspaper. Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul.

By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.

However, a historical transformation of similar magnitude also took place in northern Europe at the same time. This "Other Renaissance" was initially centered on the city of Bruges in Flanders (modern Belgium), but its influence was soon being felt in France, the German states, London, and even in Italy itself.

Alexander the Great endures as one of the most admired and emulated leaders in world history. In our time, his example of unprecedented and unparalleled success has inspired leaders of business and government, from media mogul Ted Turner (who keeps a bronze bust of Alexander in his office) to Desert Storm commander General Norman Schwarzkopf (who credits Alexander's tactical innovations for his dramatic flanking maneuver against the Iraqi army in the liberation of Kuwait).

How is a handmade fabric helping save an ancient forest? Why is a famous fabric pattern from India best known by the name of a Scottish town? How is a Chinese dragon robe a diagram of the whole universe? What is the difference between how the Greek Fates and the Viking Norns used threads to tell our destiny? In Fabric, bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe, weaving stories of our relationship with cloth and asking how and why people through the ages have made it, worn it, invented it, and made symbols out of it. And sometimes why they have fought for it.

This timeless text is required listening for any business person or athlete interested in strategy. It includes a soundtrack entitled "The Mysterious Sound of Wind In the Bamboo", a 43-minute collection of Zen-inspired Japanese music by the Matsu Take Ensemble.

Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's Ministry for Propaganda and its film studios. Conceiving every movie made, he acted as producer and screenwriter. Despite this control, he was underwhelmed by the available talent and took drastic steps, ordering the kidnapping of Choi Eun-Hee (Madam Choi) - South Korea's most famous actress - and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok, the country's most famous filmmaker.

In celebration of the 75th anniversary, a riveting first-hand account of the Battle of Okinawa from the first officer ashore, who served at the front for the battle’s entire 82-day duration, heroism that earned him a Bronze Star. On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, 1,500 Allied ships and 1.5 million men gathered off the coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa and launched the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific War. The first American officer ashore was Major Art Shaw, a unit commander in the US Army’s 361 Artillery Battalion of the 96th Division, often called the Deadeyes.

An unflinching confrontation of humanity’s dark side, Brian De Palma’s crime drama film Scarface gave rise to a cultural revolution upon its release in 1983. Its impact was unprecedented, making globe-spanning waves as a defining portrait of the gritty Miami street life. From Al Pacino’s masterful characterization of Tony Montana to the iconic “Say hello to my little friend,” Scarface maintains its reputation as an unwavering game changer in cult classic cinema.

This lyrical biography explores the life and art of Yoko Ono, from her childhood haiku to her avant-garde visual art and experimental music. An outcast throughout most of her life, and misunderstood by every group she was supposed to belong to, Yoko always followed her own unique vision to create art that was ahead of its time and would later be celebrated. Her focus remained on being an artist, even when the rest of world saw her only as the wife of John Lennon. Yoko Ono's moving story will inspire any young adult who has ever felt like an outsider.

On this adventure we're going to need to turn the sound up as we're learning all about musical instruments! From the instruments you can make in your own house, to some of the most talented musicians around the world, we're going to have a musical blast and learn more about what music means in different cultures.

Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he embarked on the creation of Middle-earth in his youth as the world around him was plunged into catastrophe. This biography reveals the horror and heroism that he experienced as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme and introduces the circle of friends who spurred his mythology to life.

Discover the rich and complex history of the peoples of Africa, and the struggles and triumphs of Black cultures and communities around the world. With profiles of key people, movements, and events, The Black History Book brings together accounts of the most significant ideas and milestones in Black history and culture. This vital and thought-provoking audiobook presents a bold and accessible overview of the history of the African continent and its peoples - from the earliest human migrations to modern Black communities and the African diaspora.

From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential audiobook offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance.

While he was the curator of the CIA Museum, Nicholas Reynolds, a longtime military intelligence expert, began to discover tantalizing clues that suggested Ernest Hemingway's involvement in the Second World War was much more complex and dangerous than has been previously understood. Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy brings to light for the first time this riveting secret side of Hemingway's life - when he worked closely with both the American OSS and the Soviet NKVD to defeat Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

While the Civil War raged in America, another very different revolution was beginning to take shape across the Atlantic, in the studios of Paris. The artists who would make Impressionism the most popular art form in history were showing their first paintings amid scorn and derision from the French artistic establishment. Indeed, no artistic movement has ever been, at its inception, quite so controversial.

Here is Hemingway: the adventurer, the reporter, the man! More intimately than all his fiction, Hemingway the reporter reveals Hemingway the man, driving an ambulance through a bullet-barrage or leading guerrilla forces into Paris, always in the thick of the action. Here are his most sensational dispatches, the behind-the-scenes stories that became For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, and The Sun Also Rises.

It was the best of times and the worst of times for Hollywood before the war. The box office was booming, and the studios’ control of talent and distribution was as airtight as could be hoped. But the industry’s relationship with Washington was decidedly uneasy - hearings and investigations into allegations of corruption and racketeering were multiplying, and hanging in the air was the insinuation that the business was too foreign, too Jewish, too "un-American" in its values and causes. Could an industry this powerful in shaping America’s mind-set really be left in the hands of this crew?