In a book made especially timely by the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill in March 1989, Joseph Jorgensen analyzes the impact of Alaskan oil extraction on Eskimo society. The author investigated three communities representing three environments: Gambell (St. Lawrence Island, Bering Sea), Wainwright (North Slope, Chukchi Sea), and Unalakleet (Norton Sound). The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which facilitated oil operations, dramatically altered the economic, social, and political organization of these villages and others like them. Although they have experienced little direct economic benefit from the oil economy, they have assumed many environmental risks posed by the industry. Jorgensen provides a detailed reminder that the Native villagers still depend on the harvest of naturally-occurring resources of the land and sea-birds, eggs, fish, plants, land mammals and sea mammals. Oil Age Eskimos should be read by all those interested in Native American societies and the policies that affect those societies. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1990.

The Art of Frenzy presents a masterful analysis of public madness from the Renaissance to the Industrial Age. Frenzy--the most flagrant and political form of madness--is the madness of warrior-heroes, kings, scolds, and the possessed. Its representation incorporates a range of traditional characters and figures, from Hercules and Orlando to Medea and Britannia. Understood as abusive power and belligerence out of control, and described in terms drawn equally from definitions of tyranny and liberty, frenzy has always been articulated with a significant degree of political meaning. Integrating art history with cultural studies, political history, and the history of medicine, Jane Kromm draws on a wide range of mediums and contexts--from asylum sculpture to political broadsheets, medical texts, the imagery of revolution, caricature and medical illustrations--to clarify the importance of this interpretative pattern.

Ever since the creation of the world's first botanical and zoological gardens five thousand years ago, people have collected, displayed, and depicted plants and animals from lands beyond their everyday experience. Some did so to demonstrate power over distant territories, others to enhance prestige by possessing something no one had seen before. Exotica also satisfied intellectual curiosity, furthered scientific research, and educated and entertained. In addition, exotica, especially their state-sponsored representation, were often instruments of political persuasion, and in turn exerted considerable influence over expansionist policies. More than an account of gardens and menageries from antiquity to the present, Strange and Wonderful explores the imagery of exotic flora and fauna in Western art, seeking answers to certain fundamental and universal questions. How do artists, schooled in traditional modes of rendering the familiar, deal with the new and strange? Why are rare species deliberately introduced into images otherwise devoid of the unusual? What is the pictorialized relationship between exotic reality and artistic imagination? Karen Polinger Foster takes readers on a journey across millennia and around the globe, telling fascinating stories and meeting along the way such characters as Hatshepsut's baboons, Charlemagne's elephant, Durer's rhinoceros, and Victoria's hippopotamus. What emerges is a sense of just how strong and far-reaching the pull of the unknown and exotic has been across time and space. Ultimately, images of the wonderful reveal as much about the indigenous as they do about the strange, enabling us to glimpse more vividly the power of imagination to mold the unknown to its purposes. This dazzling and richly illustrated volume offers a thoughtful, much-needed inquiry into a very human phenomenon.

Celebrating the magick of the natural realm, Volume IV of The Library of Esoterica, delves into the symbolism, ceremony, and our ritual relationships with the botanical world. A visual journey through our interdependent evolution with nature, Plant Magick celebrates botanicals as creative muse - from ancient Greek sculptures to Renaissance paintings to visionary art inspired by psychoactive plants, cacti, and mushrooms. Our myths, beliefs, and shared stories are continually reflected in nature; purity represented by the white lily or spiritual awakening by the bloom of the lotus. Our joys and laments are mirrored in the cycle of the seasons, in the seed birthing sprout, or in the dead leaf falling softly from winter branches. Plants, trees, and flowers as signifiers of transition are also deeply embedded within rites of passage rituals across global cultures. Rose petals strewn along the wedding aisle mark the evolution into womanhood and marriage. A wreath of lilies stands sentinel over an open grave. A lover's bouquet awaits on the doorstep. The wooden May Day pole is circled by girls wearing crowns of woven daisies, celebrating the coming of spring. Birth, unions, and burials - cycles of joyful celebration and deep grieving, all are marked symbolically with herbs, flowers or branches of a tree - the integration of nature into ceremony our method of signifying catharsis. Since time immemorial, plants have also served as potent symbols within the religions of the world; Buddha attaining enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, Eve plucking the Apple of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. From root to vibrant blossom, Plant Magick explores the fertile, interconnected history between plants and people, the multitude of ways in which we embrace plants in spiritual ceremony, as healing medicine, as creative muse and as gateways into deeper explorations of consciousness. About the series The Library of Esoterica explores how centuries of artists have given form to mysticism, translating the arcane and the obscure into enduring, visionary works of art. Each subject is showcased through both modern and archival imagery culled from private collectors, libraries, and museums around the globe. The result forms an inclusive visual history, a study of our primal pull to dream and nightmare, and the creative ways we strive to connect to the divine.

A multitude of literary and cinematic works were spawned by the Vietnam war, but this is a unique book, combining moving prose with powerful illustrations created by combat artists in the U.S. military. Dr. Noble has assembled a remarkable collection of 153 reproductions printed in black and white, arranged with oral histories, letters and other commentaries to give the reader a more intimate understanding of the combat soldier who served in Vietnam and what he had to endure. Forgotten Warriors is not intended to argue the merits of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Rather, through the visual impact of the illustrations, the soldiers themselves express what the Vietnam experience was like in a way that is different and more profound than perhaps any other work on the subject.

The main focus of the book is on the way artists saw the world of the grunt: patrols, life in the rear, fighting the terrain and weather, tests of endurance, the machines of war and the effects of combat and its aftermath. The reader is also given a sense of how some writers and artists felt about the country and the people of South Vietnam. To date, our perceptions of the Vietnam war have been influenced largely by movies, television and novels. Recognizing this, Dr. Noble enlisted Professor William J. Palmer, a noted authority on the media and their reportage fo the war, to provide an essay that allows the reader to compare his or her past impressions with the art works contained in this book. A moving collection, "Forgotten WarriorS" offers the truest picture of the Vietnam war in human terms.

This book reconsiders a wide array of images of Byzantine empresses on media as diverse as bronze coins and gold mosaic from the fifth through seventh centuries A.D. The representations have often been viewed in terms of individual personas, but strong typological currents frame their medieval context. Empress Theodora, the target of political pornography, has consumed the bulk of past interest, but even her representations fit these patterns. Methodological tools from fields as disparate as numismatics as well as cultural and gender studies help clarify the broader cultural significance of female imperial representation and patronage at this time.

Providing a useful overview of the current state of black British writing and pointing towards future developments in the field, this edited collection examines the formation of a black British Canon including writers, dramatists, filmmakers and artists. The essays included discuss the textual, political and cultural history of black British and the term "black British" itself.

Although women painters and sculptors have often been the focus of academic research, they have not been fully integrated into traditional lower-division art history surveys. Politically Incorrect: Women Artists and Female Imagery in Early Modern Europe celebrates women who met the challenge of being female professionals and succeeded as artists at a time when such accomplishments were not expected or encouraged. Concentrating on social history as well as the history of art, the book inspires students to think about the context in which the women of Early Modern Europe lived. Part I focuses on creativity and the creative process. Part II is chronologically based and examines women artists of the latter Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, and 18th century. Part III is thematically constructed and investigates female imagery and how women were perceived. Developed and class-tested for 30 years, the materials in the text enhance and amplify views of women and female artists. Politically Incorrect can be used as the basis for art history courses of the Renaissance and Baroque. It can also be employed at higher levels as an introduction to more scholarly research on the topic. Additionally, the book is an excellent supplement to many women's studies, gender studies, and early modern European history courses.