The author, a novelist, wrote these sparkling, discursive essays during Japan’s brutal World War II occupation of Shanghai. Readers are likely to consider her a carefree commentator, writing about home, siblings, fathers (and their... Read More

What celebrity has ever gone wrong with a Valentino gown on the runway? The designer himself admits that he has never been revolutionary, but instead he strives for “an elegance that transforms borders,” a goal that has served him... Read More

Pioneering Painter: In the early and mid-twentieth century, amid depression, war, and the Holocaust, painters seeking transcendence developed the surrealist and cubist movements. A student of both, the sensitive Marc Chagall created... Read More

While writers since Hesiod have employed insect imagery to make their metaphors crawl, no writer in the entomological tradition has as much “street cred” as Franz Kafka, whose hero Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis awakens to find... Read More

Americans are familiar with a romanticized view of geisha life in Japan, one that includes art and music, poetry and social status. Not all geisha, however, live such a life, as this poignant, compelling tale relates. Beginning with her... Read More

This first complete English translation of thirty-two of Aby Warburg’s essays, papers and notes is much needed. Fully illustrated, extensively annotated and indexed, this finely designed and well-printed volume will earn both... Read More

When Marjorie Earl joined the general reporting staff of the Toronto Star in 1942, the publisher—believing the presence of a female in the city department would “demoralize the male reporters”—had her desk placed in with the... Read More

What do groceries have to do with the success of Merrill Lynch, the world’s largest brokerage and investment firm? As an expert on the historical development of American financial services from colonial times to the twentieth century,... Read More