In the postwar years, an eruption of urbanization took place across Japan, from its historical central cities to the outer reaches of the archipelago. During the 1960s and 1970s, Japanese literary and visual media took a deep interest in cities and their problems, and what this rapid change meant for the country. In Residual Futures, Franz Prichard offers a pathbreaking analysis of the works wrought from this intensive urbanization, mapping the ways in which Japanese filmmakers, writers, photographers, and other artists came to grips with the entwined ecologies of a drastic transformation. Residual Futures examines crucial works of documentary film, fiction, and photography that interrogated Japan's urbanization and integration into the U.S.-dominated geopolitical system. Prichard discusses documentary filmmaker Tsuchimoto Noriaki's portrait of the urban "traffic war" and the remaking of Tokyo for the 1964 Olympics, novelist Abe Kobo's depictions of infrastructure and urban sociality, and the radical notions of landscape that emerge from the critical and photographic work of Nakahira Takuma. His careful readings reveal the shifting relationships among urban materialities and subjectivities and the ecological, political, and aesthetic vocabularies of urban change. A novel cultural history of critical urban discourse in Japan, Residual Futures brings an interdisciplinary approach to Japanese literary and visual media studies. It provides a vital new perspective on the infrastructural aesthetics and entangled urban and media conditions of the global Cold War.

The Chicago Cubs of the mid-1920s through 1940 were one of the most talented and exciting ball clubs the city ever produced. The Northsiders enjoyed 14 consecutive winning seasons and claimed the National League pennant four times (1929, 1932, 1935, and 1938), but fell to a dominant American League club in each World Series appearance. Four legendary baseball names led these Cub teams during this amazing stretch. Three eventually landed in Cooperstown (McCarthy, Hornsby, Hartnett), and many believe the fourth (Grimm) should have joined them. This was also the era when Cubs Park was transformed into Wrigley Field, under the guidance of Bill Veeck Jr., with its trademark bricks and ivy, hand-operated scoreboard, and outfield bleachers.

In the 1980s, Hackney was one of the most deprived parts of the UK, its citizens ignored by Margaret Thatcher's new vision of Britain. But at Dalston's Rio - London's oldest community cinema - the Tape/Slide Newsreel Group was giving unemployed local youth a voice. Set up in 1982, it taught photography and sound-recording skills, and championed an alternative, left-wing perspective on Hackney life. In 2016, thousands of slides were found in a filing cabinet in the Rio's basement, a legacy of this ground-breaking project. The book presents the best of the slides that were shown in newsreels before the main feature at the Rio, alongside recollections of the Tape/Slide Newsreel Group participants. This important oral history places the photos in the cultural and political context of Hackney in the 1980s, meaning that, unlike some photobooks about East London, it is connected to the communities it portrays and remains true to the original radicalism behind the Tape/Slide Newsreel Group. There are introductory essays by Andrew Woodyatt (of The Rio), about the cinema's activities in the 1980s, and by Alan Denney (the photographer and local historian who digitised all the slides) putting the archive into the context of the contemporary movements in radical community photography, plus forewords from Michael Rosen and Zawe Ashton. The archive is presented chronologically and themes include: activism, parades and protest marches; art, culture, music and festivals; social problems and community action; street life and style; urban landscapes and dereliction; work and everyday life; young and old.

Archaeologist and award-winning photographer Gavin McGuire's involvement with the Sissi Archaeological Project, where he conducted a seven year photographic study of the Bronze Age Minoan excavations under the auspices of the Belgian School in Athens, Universite Catholique de Louvain, offered an extraordinary opportunity to capture moments of human interaction during excavations as they interconnected with an ancient Minoan culture, stretching back millennia (2600-1200 BC). With the Sissi Photography Project, at a unique coastal landscape four kilometres from Malia Palace in Crete, McGuire follows a proud photographic tradition that is now facing yet another major technological change - from digital to virtual, from handheld cameras to drones and to live excavation access. It is also the age of the smartphone - easy for anyone to use, producing high quality images that regularly engages a global general audience. McGuire's approach revolves around being at the right place and at the right fleeting moment, making images that highlight motion and emotion from the more than 80 `players' on the archaeological stage for the excavation season during each July-August. There are images of scientists at work - archaeologists, anthropologists, technical specialists, local workmen digging (many proudly following in the wake of their forefathers) and restorers and conservators dealing with the thousands of finds housed at the apothiki or workshop. Yet the Sissi Project encompasses not only the dig period but includes images of the site throughout the year, showing, in part, the impact of the environment. 137 black and white photographs are accompanied by a series of short essays presented in English and Greek providing an overview of the project's photographic approach and an introduction to the long and complex relationship between archaeology and photography from their 19th century beginnings. The outcome shows that archaeological sites are not just created overnight but are the result of years of discovery, restoration and preservation. They are not just for now, but hopefully for the future. The ancient past deserves nothing less.

Sacred Shanghai by photographer and anthropologist Liz Hingley, explores the spaces, rituals and communities - in official, unofficial, public and private forms - that together weave the spiritual fabric of China's largest and most cosmopolitan city. After decades of suppression during the Mao era, China has been undergoing one of the great religious revivals of our time. Unsettled by the pace of development and globalisation, millions are turning to faith for meaning and hope in the alienating mega cities that now dominate Chinese life.

In "The Cruel Radiance", Susie Linfield challenges the idea that photographs of political violence exploit their subjects and pander to the voyeuristic tendencies of their viewers. Instead she argues passionately that looking at such images - and learning to see the people in them - is an ethically and politically necessary act that connects us to our modern history of violence and probes the human capacity for cruelty. Grappling with critics from Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht to Susan Sontag and the postmoderns - and analyzing photographs from such events as the Holocaust, China's Cultural Revolution, and recent terrorist acts - Linfield explores the complex connection between photojournalism and the rise of human rights ideals. In the book's concluding section, she examines the indispensable work of Robert Capa, James Nachtwey, and Gilles Peress and asks how photography should respond to the increasingly nihilistic trajectory of modern warfare. A bracing and unsettling book, "The Cruel Radiance" convincingly demonstrates that if we hope to alleviate political violence, we must first truly understand it - and to do that, we must begin to look.

Concorde - named for the English and French word for 'unity' - was like no other aircraft. It is perhaps the most iconic airliner of all time, its name a byword for speed, comfort and extravagance. It captured the public's imagination and hearts, instilling them with a fervent passion. Concorde: An Icon in the News is a look at both the plane and its people. Using photos from Mirrorpix, one of the world's largest picture libraries, it tracks the airliner from the Anglo-French drawing board to the final flight, through the eyes of the people who loved it most.