For more than a dozen years the Byzantine Empire preserved and extended the treasures of Christian civilization. Today its artistic glories lie scattered through many lands, and it is not easy to obtain an accurate and comprehensive picture of its rich traditions. The first part of this text contains an analytical survey of the principal problems involved. The second gives a detailed appreciation by periods of the empires achievement in architecture, mosaic, painting, sculpture, manuscript illustration, and other arts.

Non-academic history – ‘public history’ – is a complex, dynamic entity which impacts on the popular understanding of the past at all levels.
In Consuming History, Jerome de Groot examines how society consumes history and how a reading of this consumption can help us understand popular culture and issues of representation. This book analyzes a wide range of cultural entities – from computer games to daytime television, from blockbuster fictional narratives such as Da Vinci Code to DNA genealogical tools – to analyze how history works in contemporary popular culture.

A Companion to Ancient Egyptian Art presents a comprehensive collection of original essays exploring key concepts, critical discourses, and theories that shape the discipline of ancient Egyptian art.

A regiment of women warriors strides across the battlefield of German culture - on the stage, in the opera house, on the page, and in paintings and prints. These warriors are re-imaginings by men of figures such as the Amazons, the Valkyries, and the biblical killer Judith. They are transgressive and therefore frightening figures who leave their proper female sphere and have to be made safe by being killed, deflowered, or both.

The Gothic tradition continues to excite the popular imagination. John C. Tibbetts presents interviews and conversations with prominent novelists, filmmakers, artists, and film and television directors and actors as they trace the Gothic mode across three centuries, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, through H.P. Lovecraft, to today’s science fiction, goth, and steampunk culture. H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Robert (Psycho) Bloch, Chris (The Polar Express) Van Allsburg, Maurice Sendak, Gahan Wilson, Ray Harryhausen, Christopher Reeve, Greg Bear, William Shatner, and many more share their worlds of imagination and terror.