The tender roots of Modern Art can be seen in the wild sea paintings of Turner, as early as the mid 19th Century, but it took the Impressionists and the Pre-Raphaelites to break the elite classical mode, until the final blows were dealt in the early 1900s by Kandinsky, Klee and Picasso. Modern Art was a reaction to the gathering pace of industrialisation of the late Victorian world, and the desire for art that looked forwards not behind to classical myth and legend. But once the beast of modernism had been unleashed it fragmented into many different forms, each of which are explored in this striking, heavily illustrated new book.

This important and timely book offers the unique opportunity to look at contemporary art enriched by a multicultural experience and framed by a shared Arab identity. The work of 18 Arab women artists from around the world is collected together for the first time, challenging western stereotyping of the women's role in Arab society to brilliantly illustrate how women experience and question their lives as integral to the Arab diaspora. In Contemporary Arab Women's Art, curators and scholars focus our attention on women working in an international arena as yet little known to the average art observer. By engaging us in a cross-cultural dialogue we not only grasp the diversity of the Arab experi-ence today but also the fresh perspective that each artist brings to key issues in contemporary art.

In this highly original approach to the study of the construction of culture, this collection of previously unpublished essays explore the topography of the secret and the forbidden, focusing on specific moments in recent cultural and political history. By bringing together writers from different disciplines and different locations, this volume provides a rich and diverse mapping of how the secret and forbidden operate across different subjects and different geographies, extending far beyond physical locations. It is present in domains ranging from language, literature, and cinema to social and political life. This refreshing and thought-provoking collection of essays will prove invaluable for researchers and students.

In a highly original approach to the study of the construction of culture, this collection of previously unpublished essays explores the topography of the secret and the forbidden, focusing on specific moments in recent cultural and political history. By bringing together writers from different disciplines and different locations, this volume provides a rich and diverse mapping of how the secret and forbidden operate across different subjects and different geographies, extending far beyond physical locations. It is present in domains as different as art, language, literature, and cinema to social and political life. This refreshing and thought-provoking collection of essays will prove invaluable for researchers and students engaged in rethinking culture across and within a range of disciplines.