Posts by Yale University Press

Unlikely Beginnings: Knoll Textiles and WWII

The founders of the Knoll furniture company, Hans Knoll and Jens Risom, would never have assumed that they were beginning a leading, imaginative firm that would influence other designers for decades. In their early careers, their methods were more patchwork quilt than handmade upholstery. When the two men began collaborating,

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Hank Greenberg: Always an Accidental Hero

The Detroit Tigers could really use Hank Greenberg right about now. The Cleveland Indians win on August 9 added up to an unlucky 13th straight loss for the Tigers against the team. Of course, wishing for a star player from half a decade ago would probably only contribute to the

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Goodreads Giveaway: Elizabeth and Hazel

The names Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery may not be well known, but the image of them from September 1957 surely is: a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of Little Rock Central High School, and a white girl standing directly behind her, face

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Restoring Ishimoto’s Vision of Katsura

When photographer Ishimoto Yasuhiro asked modernist architect Tange Kenzō to write an essay for his book of Katsura photographs, he inadvertently pitted architectural and photographic approaches against each other. Kenzō’s enthusiastic reaction was akin to Dad “helping” with his child’s science fair by reshaping the vision of the project; instead of merely contributing an essay, he cropped, resized, and reorganized the pictures into what became the “landmark” work.

Tarek Osman on The Strategic Direction of Egypt’s Revolution

As the events of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution continue with the no-longer-televised trial of deposed president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, journalist Tarek Osman, author of the acclaimed and prescient  Egypt on the Brink (January 2011), weighs in on the current state of the revolution’s course.  An updated edition of his

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Impossible Outfit: Summer Wedding Edition

Going to a summer wedding? (Or going to four, as the case may be for Yale University Press’s Paper Doll?) Check out the outfit she has put together, and if you like it, let her know in the comments section, and she may coordinate a personal ensemble just for you!

How Love Replaced God

If you Google the phrase “movies with the word ‘love’ in the title,” you could spend an amazingly long time reading list after list of endless films. Hollywood knows that the word “love” is like pouring gasoline on your marketing campaign’s fire—it could go very badly, but it is going

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Contradictions in Love of Land: American Georgics

Follow @yaleSCIbooks No matter where you are in the U.S. this summer, you have probably felt the effects of the record-setting heat. While most of us are just sweating a little more than usual, our country’s agricultural community faces a depressing situation. The heat arrived with an extreme drought throughout

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Rebel With an Abstract Cause

Evelyn Toynton’s forthcoming Icons of America biography, Jackson Pollock, explores how Pollock’s tortured and conflicted character transformed popular culture. Against a backdrop of criticism that found American art inferior to its European counterpart (Marcel Duchamp wrote that “The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.”), Pollock’s controversial, even rebellious, work was provocative for generations old and new.

Grudging Love for Country in Switzerland and Norway

“What are men to rocks and mountains?” Elizabeth Bennett asks her aunt in Pride and Prejudice. Although Lizzy wants to deceive herself after “disappointment” regarding certain men, some artists would wholeheartedly agree with her, at least regarding their paintings’ subjects. Rocks and mountains, as well as forests, snow, and rivers,

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