"Hallum's painting is charged with delight in colour, line, surface and composition, in powerfully unconventional ways." - Hettie Judah This is the first monograph on the London-born, Devon-based artist Jacqui Hallum. The publication documents Hallum's solo exhibition at The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (10 October 2019 - 1 March 2020), along with a series of solo, two-person and group exhibitions held between 2014 and 2020. Hallum is best-known for her mixed-media paintings on textiles - techniques she has developed and refined over the course of twenty years since completing her studies. Incorporating imagery and visual languages ranging from medieval woodcuts and stained-glass windows to Art Nouveau children's illustrations, tarot cards and Berber rugs, Hallum employs ink staining, painting, drawing and printing to create layers of pattern, abstraction and passages of figurative imagery. As part of her working process, Hallum often leaves the fabrics in the open air, exposed to the elements, in order to introduce weathering into the works. History, religion, mysticism and the beliefs and creativity of past civilisations are among the themes that overlap - often in a literal sense of pieces of fabrics layered, pinned, draped and hung together - to form painterly palimpsests that carry a sense of the past with them into the present. Along with a foreword by Professor Caroline Wilkinson, Director of the School of Art and Design at Liverpool John Moores University, and an introductory essay by artist, curator and director of Kingsgate Workshops and Project Space in London, Dan Howard-Birt, the publication features newly commissioned essays by arts journalist and critic Hettie Judah and by Andrew Hunt, Professor of Fine Art and Curating at the University of Manchester. Also featured is the edited transcript of a conversation between Hallum and Howard-Birt held at The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Jacqui Hallum (b.1977, London) graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Coventry School of Art& Design, Coventry University, in 1999, and an MFA in Painting from the Slade School of Fine Art, University of London, in 2002. Hallum's solo exhibition at The Walker Art Gallery followed a three-month fellowship at Liverpool John Moores University, which resulted from winning the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize in 2018. The monograph, designed by work-form and edited by Susan Taylor, has been produced by Kingsgate Project Space and co-published with Anomie Publishing.

This book is a fascinating discussion of the development of the military equipment of the earliest organized armies. Dan Howard describes the development of weapons, armour and chariots, how they were made and their tactical use in battle. Spanning from the introduction of massed infantry by the Sumerians (c. 26th century BC) through to the collapse of the chariot civilizations (c. 12th century BC), this is the period of the epic struggles described in the Old Testament and Homer's Iliad, the clashes of mighty empires like those of the Babylonians, Egyptians and Hittites. The author draws on the latest research and archaeology, as well as his own experiences of using and making replica weapons and armour, to challenge established views and bring fresh insights to this fascinating period of military history. The main regions of discussion are the Aegean, the Near East and the Middle East but some reference is also made to other relevant cultures such as the Aryan Indians and the Shang Chinese.