I.B. TAURIS

(P/B) SUEZ
This title includes a new Foreword by WM. Roger Louis. On 26 July 1956, the British Empire received a blow from which it would never recover. On this day, Egypt's President Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company, one of the gems of Britain's imperial portfolio. It was to be a fateful day for Britain as a world power. Britain, France and Israel subsequently colluded in attacking Egypt, ostensibly - in the case of Britain and France - to protect the Suez Canal but in reality in an attempt to depose Nasser. The US opposition t...
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(H/B) GOD
In this elegant new book, the sequel to his earlier, much praised treatment of the Devil, Philip Almond reveals that - whether in Judaism, Christianity or Islam - God is seen to be at once utterly beyond our world yet at the same earnestly desiring to be at one with it. In the Christian chapter of this story the paradox arguably reaches its improbable zenith: in the fragile form of a human being the infinite became finite, the eternal temporal. The way these and other metaphysical tensions have been understood is, the author demonstrates, ...
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(P/B) ART AND POLITICS
Contemporary art is increasingly concerned with swaying the opinions of its viewer. To do so, the art employs various strategies to convey a political message. This book provides readers with the tools to decode and appreciate political art, a crucial and understudied direction in post-war art. From the post-war works of Pablo Picasso and Alexander Deineka to thie Border Film Project and web-based works of Beatriz da Costa, Art and Politics: a Small History of Art for Social Change after 1945 considers how artists visual or otherwise have ...
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(P/B) THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE WORLD ECONOMY, 1800-1914
Examines the growth and transformation of the Middle East economy during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The text looks at how the region's economic structures were fundamentally altered by the growing impact of European trade and finance, and by the internal reforms of the rulers of Egypt. (From the publisher)...
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(H/B) A CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE OTTOMANS
Far from simply being a centre of military and economic activity, the Ottoman Empire represented a vivid and flourishing cultural realm. The artefacts and objects that remain from all corners of this vast empire illustrate the real and everyday concerns of its subjects and elites and, with this in mind, Suraiya Faroqhi, one of the most distinguished Ottomanists of her generation, has selected 40 of the most revealing, surprising and striking.Each image - reproduced in full colour - is deftly linked to the latest historiography, and the soc...
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(P/B) MIRROR
At the centre of Tarkovsky's oeuvre, Mirror is his most complex and autobiographical film. It stretches the viewer by moving without apparent effort between past, present and imagined realities, in a series of episodes which observe neither plot nor overt logic. The film reconstructs and records iconic memories and deep emotional impressions in the life of an individual, a nation and an era. Audience reaction to 'Mirror' was overwhelming and it came to represent a watershed in many people's lives. It also occasioned Tartovsky's first open ...
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(P/B) OUT OF EGYPT
Set in Alexandria, this classic and much-loved memoir chronicles the exploits of Andre Aciman's colourful Sephardic Jewish family from its arrival in Egypt at the turn of the century to its forced departure three generations later. Aciman tells a story of childhood innocence, of intricate family life and the pain of exile from a place one loves. His memories are adorned with eccentric characters: mysterious Uncle Vili - soldier, salesman, Italian Fascist and British spy; the two grandmothers, the Princess and the Saint, who gossip in six d...
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(H/B) WHEN EAGLES DARED
When Eagles Dared tells the stories of the historical events of World War II and the films that have depicted these events on cinema screens, presenting a guide to history through cinema that compares the cinematic myth with the historical reality. Illustrated with rare posters and stills, it gives a unique view of this war through the lenses of over 50 diverse films including Downfall, Patton, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Anzio, The Thin Red Line, Letters from Iwo Jima, Stalingrad, Battle of the Bulge, Cross of Iron, and A Bridge Too Far. Events di...
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(P/B) ITALIAN JOURNEYS
When Abraham Lincoln appointed William Dean Howells Consul to Venice, the young writer embarked on a journey that would leave an indelible impression on his life and work. Howells lived in Italy for four years, from 1861, during the pivotal and tumultuous period of Italian reunification. Italian Journeys, Howell's engrossing memoir of this time, describes his adventures across the country - from Genoa, a hotbed of nationalistic fervour and the city from which Garibaldi had led the Expedition of the Thousand only a year before; to the cultu...
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(P/B) IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE GODS
Gladiators and goddesses, philosophers and poets, epic battles and romantic landscapes... the classical world has for centuries captivated and inspired the West. But what provoked the shift from the Western world's love affair with classical Rome and its manifestation in the Renaissance to the Hellenic world? The decisive switch in focus and taste from Rome to Greece began in the seventeenth century, when a succession of travellers -mainly from France and England- journeyed to Greece and what is now Turkey and rediscovered the Hellenic wo...
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(H/B) THE NEW SULTAN
In a world of rising tensions between Russia and the United States, the Middle East and Europe, Sunnis and Shiites, Islamism and liberalism, Turkey is at the epicentre. And at the heart of Turkey is its right-wing populist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since 2002, Erdogan has consolidated his hold on domestic politics while using military and diplomatic means to solidify Turkey as a regional power. His crackdown has been brutal and consistent - scores of journalists arrested, academics officially banned from leaving the country, univers...
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(P/B) CRIME WAVE - THE FILMGOERS' GUIDE TO THE GREAT CRIME MOVIE
Crime movies inhabit dark and desperate worlds, yet they account for many of Hollywood's most triumphant successes. In full acknowledgement of this achievement, "Crime Wave" offers an authoritative and informative, stimulating and entertaining guide to the crime movie phenomenon, from its early days to the present, charting its history and celebrating the people who have given it a special and enduring place in cinema goers' affections. Chapters focus on landmark Hollywood films - from 1931's "The Public Enemy", through "The Maltese Falcon...
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(P/B) THE YEZIDIS
Yezidism is a fascinating part of the rich cultural mosaic of the Middle East. The Yezidi faith emerged for the first time in the twelfth century in the Kurdish mountains of northern Iraq. The religion, which has become notorious for its associations with 'devil worship', is in fact an intricate syncretic system of belief, incorporating elements from proto-Indo-European religions, early Iranian faiths like Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, Sufism and regional paganism like Mithraism. Birgul Acikyildiz here offers a comprehensive appraisal of...
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(P/B) THE BATTLE THAT SHOOK EUROPE
'This victory', exulted Peter the Great, 'has laid the final stone in the foundations of St Petersburg!' The Battle of Poltava, 1709, marks the birth of the Tsar's vast Russian Empire. In 1700, seeking to open Russian trade routes to the West, the Tsar combined with Denmark, Saxony and Poland to attack Swedish hegemony in the North. Against the odds, King Charles XII of Sweden subdued the hostile coalition for nearly a decade, but in 1708 took his fatal decision to march for Moscow. His defeat at Poltava, in the Ukraine, proved the turning...
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(H/B) ALEPPO
'Every time gardens welcomed us, we said to them, Aleppo is our aim and you are merely the route.' Al-Mutanabbi Aleppo lies in ruins. Its streets are plunged in darkness, most of its population has fled. But this was once a vibrant world city, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived and traded together in peace. Few places are as ancient and diverse as Aleppo - one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world - successively ruled by the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman and French empires. Under the Ottomans, it...
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(P/B) DIRECTING
Of all the artisans who work in the American film industry, directors have been given the lion's share of attention. Yet few books in this literature address the ways directors have worked with others and have negotiated the constraints and opportunities posed by a complex production process and a sprawling commercial industry. Directing fills this gap. It provides the historical context necessary to understand the key role of directors in the Hollywood system. It covers iconic directors like Cecil B. DeMille, Francis Ford Coppola and Terr...
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(P/B) DANTE
Dante is one of the towering figures of medieval European literature. Yet many riddles and questions about him persist. By re-reading Dante with an open mind, Barbara Reynolds made remarkable discoveries and unlocked previously hidden secrets about this greatest of Florentine poets. A fundamental enigma has tantalised readers of the 'Commedia' for seven centuries. Who was the leader prophesied by Virgil and Beatrice to bring peace to the world? Many attempts have been made to identify him, but none has seemed conclusive - until now. As wel...
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(P/B) DELEUZE REFRAMED
Are your students baffled by Baudrillard? Dazed by Deleuze? Confused by Kristeva? Other beginners' guides can feel as impenetrable as the original texts to students who 'think in images'. "Contemporary Thinkers Reframed" instead uses the language of the arts to explore the usefulness in practice of complex ideas. Short, contemporary and accessible, these lively books utilise actual examples of artworks, films, television shows, works of architecture, fashion and even computer games to explain and explore the work of the most commonly taugh...
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(P/B) LYOTARD REFRAMED
Lyotard's claims concerning the postmodern have often been misunderstood or misrepresented. Lyotard Reframed provides an analysis of Lyotard's most influential writings on the postmodern alongside a detailed commentary on his broader philosophy, demonstrating and clarifying his work's ongoing relevance to creative endeavour and debates concerning the value and significance of the visual arts. It also situates Lyotard's discussion of the postmodern within the context of his other key concepts: the figural, the libidinal and the sublime. Acc...
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(P/B) ART DIRECTION AND PRODUCTION DESIGN
Art directors and production designers are the cinema's 'architects of illusion'. Their overall purpose is to produce the overall pictorial vision for a film and their skills encompass set design, storyboarding, painting, decoration, construction, budgeting, colour and special effects. This book examines the crafts of art direction and production design. It traces their contribution from Thomas Edison's primitive studio, the Black Maria, to the growth of the Hollywood 'studio system', to the effect of sound and colour, and on to the comput...
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