A rich, authoritative look at a material that plays an essential role in human culture
Wood has been a central part of human life throughout the world for thousands of years. In an intoxicating mix of science, history, and practical information, historian and woodworker Harvey Green considers this vital material's place on the planet. What makes one wood hard and one soft? How did we find it, tame it? Where does it fit into the histories of technology, architecture, and industrialization, of empire, exploration, and settlement? Spanning the surprising histories of the log cabin and Windsor chair, the deep truth about veneer, the role of wood in the American Revolution, the disappearance of the rain forests, the botany behind the baseball bat, and much more, "Wood" is a deep and satisfying look at one of our most treasured resources.

More than 530 beautifully photographed examples of jewelry and art-enamel work glow from the pages of this first comprehensive study of the work and aesthetic vision of the American Arts & Crafts movement. The lives and art of the era's top craftsmen-84 jewelers, enamelists, and metalsmiths-are explained with careful consideration to the contexts and influences that shaped them. The belief that beauty should be part of everyday life was paramount in the design reform movements of the early 20th century. Dozens of creators are featured here, including Josephine Hartwell Shaw, Frank Gardner Hale, Robert Riddle Jarvie, the Kalo Shop, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and the Roycroft. Although jewelry and enamelwork pieces received appreciative critical acclaim in that period, during today's revival of interest in the US Arts & Crafts movement, they have attracted scant attention from art historians. This collection fills that void and is a valuable resource for collectors and historians.

This book presents the designs for bookplates and badges by the English Arts and Crafts designer and architect, C.F.A. Voysey, (1857-1941). Perhaps the most recognised and influential designer of his age, Voysey designed over one hundred bookplates, badges and greetings cards. The focus of the book is the collection of these designs from Voysey's own personal archive. Only a very few of these designs have been published to date, and never as a completed collection. Beautiful to look at and full of interesting symbolism, each design encapsulates the spirit and underlying principles which informed every aspect of Voysey's architecture and decorative design. They also form the centrepiece of a beautifully illustrated tale about the life and work of Voysey, touching on his personality, interests, relationship with family and clients, and his central role as designer of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Contemporary Crafts explores craft practices in both North America and Britain, revealing an astonishingly rich and diverse picture of artisanal work today. The book ranges across both urban and rural crafts and analyses how the country/city dichotomy creates differing approaches, practices and objects. Analysed in the context of their environment and its localised history, crafted objects are shown to embody or critique particular urban/rural myths and traditions. Covering both traditional and cutting-edge crafts from the small-scale domestic to large outdoor works, Contemporary Crafts demonstrates how craftspeople today are responding to the changing creative contexts of culture and history.

The oldest word in politics is "new". The oldest word in the writing of history may well be "modern": it is, without doubt, one of the most overworked adjectives in the English language. But the indeterminacy is perhaps just another way of saying that the difficulties raised are of a kind which simply will not go away... This collection of eight essays on aspects of modernity and modernism takes up the challenge of examining the complex, but fascinating convergence of aesthetics, politics and a quasi-spiritual dimension which is perhaps typical of British modernist thinking about modernity. This may have produced figures whom we now dismiss as eccentrics or "aesthetes", it none the less produced figures whom many still think of as in some sense embodying the national identity: what, after all, could be more "English" than a William Morris wallpaper design? Rather than towards socialism in any of its "scientific" guises, what the British modernist approach to modernity may have been pushing at was yet another mutation of liberalism: a libertarian-humanitarian hybrid in which indigenous radical and Evangelical legacies keep scientific socialism in check, where fellowship and domesticity edge out a larger-scale, more abstract "fraternity", and where citoyennete or civisme give way to what George Orwell was later to define simply as "decency".