The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Art and Hitler’s first Mass-Murder Programme

The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Art and Hitler’s first Mass-Murder Programme PDF Author: Charlie English
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0008299641
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
‘A riveting tale, brilliantly told' Philippe Sands The little-known story of Hitler’s war on modern art and the mentally ill.

Artistry of the Mentally Ill

Artistry of the Mentally Ill PDF Author: H. Prinzhorn
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3662009161
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
No one is more conscious of the faults of this work than the author. Therefore some self -criticism should be woven into this foreward. There are two possible methodologically pure solutions to this book's theme: a de scriptive catalog of the pictures couched in the language of natural science and accom panied by a clinical and psychopathological description of the patients, or a completely metaphysically based investigation of the process of pictorial composition. According to the latter, these unusual works, explained psychologically, and the exceptional circum stances on which they are based would be integrated as a playful variation of human expression into a total picture of the ego under the concept of an inborn creative urge, behind which we would then only have to discover a universal need for expression as an instinctive foundation. In brief, such an investigation would remain in the realm of phenomenologically observed existential forms, completely independent of psychiatry and aesthetics. The compromise between these two pure solutions must necessarily be piecework and must constantly defend itself against the dangers of fragmentation. We are in danger of being satisfied with pure description, the novelistic expansion of details and questions of principle; pitfalls would be very easy to avoid if we had the use of a clearly outlined method. But the problems of a new, or at least never seriously worked, field defy the methodology of every established subject.

The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu

The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu PDF Author: Charlie English
Publisher: William Collins
ISBN: 9780008126650
Category : Cultural property
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Two tales of a city: The historical race to reach one of the world's most mythologized places, and the story of how a contemporary band of archivists and librarians, fighting to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda, added another layer to the legend. To Westerners, the name "Timbuktu" long conjured a tantalising paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore gold. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, a series of explorers gripped by the fever for "discovery" tried repeatedly to reach the fabled city. But one expedition after another went disastrously awry, succumbing to attack, the climate, and disease. Timbuktu was rich in another way too. A medieval centre of learning, it was home to tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts, on subjects ranging from religion to poetry, law to history, pharmacology, and astronomy. When al-Qaeda-linked jihadists surged across Mali in 2012, threatening the existence of these precious documents, a remarkable thing happened: a team of librarians and archivists joined forces to spirit the manuscripts into hiding. Relying on extensive research and firsthand reporting, Charlie English expertly twines these two suspenseful strands into a fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable

Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis

Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis PDF Author: Robert M. Edsel
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393240452
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Monuments Men "An astonishing account of a little-known American effort to save Italy's…art during World War II."—Tom Brokaw When Hitler’s armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind’s greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire. On the eve of the Allied invasion, General Dwight Eisenhower empowered a new kind of soldier to protect these historic riches. In May 1944 two unlikely American heroes—artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt—embarked from Naples on the treasure hunt of a lifetime, tracking billions of dollars of missing art, including works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Titian, Caravaggio, and Botticelli. With the German army retreating up the Italian peninsula, orders came from the highest levels of the Nazi government to transport truckloads of art north across the border into the Reich. Standing in the way was General Karl Wolff, a top-level Nazi officer. As German forces blew up the magnificent bridges of Florence, General Wolff commandeered the great collections of the Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace, later risking his life to negotiate a secret Nazi surrender with American spymaster Allen Dulles. Brilliantly researched and vividly written, the New York Times bestselling Saving Italy brings readers from Milan and the near destruction of The Last Supper to the inner sanctum of the Vatican and behind closed doors with the preeminent Allied and Axis leaders: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Churchill; Hitler, Göring, and Himmler. An unforgettable story of epic thievery and political intrigue, Saving Italy is a testament to heroism on behalf of art, culture, and history.

Stuff Matters

Stuff Matters PDF Author: Mark Miodownik
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544236041
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
A world-leading materials scientist presents an engrossing collection of stories that explain the science and history of materials, from the plastic in our appliances to the elastic in our underpants, revealing the miracles of engineering that seep into our everyday lives. 25,000 first printing.

The Snow Tourist

The Snow Tourist PDF Author: Charlie English
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1582435200
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Combining on–the–slopes experience with off–trail research, author Charlie English follows in the footsteps of the Romantic poets across the Alps, learns how to build igloos with the Inuit on Baffin Island, examines snow–patches in the Cairngorms to detect signs of global warming, and tests his mettle on some of the most perilous peaks on Earth. Along the way, he meets up with a flurry of fellow enthusiasts, from avalanche survivors and resort operators to climate scientists and champion skiers. English is obsessed with snow, and has collected for our enjoyment an amazing array of not–so–random facts about the hexagonal substance that fills the human imagination with wonder. In this "snow handbook," he describes how snow is created, how to build an igloo, how avalanches occur, and (more importantly) how to survive an avalanche. His glossary is filled with snow terms that will delight, such as "coulior," "hoarfrost," "firn," and "sastrugi." Fresh and fun and infused with the adrenaline of adventure, The Snow Tourist is a fascinating account of one man's pilgrimage through the world's blanketed fields, ice–capped rooftops, cozy igloos, and snow–covered mountain peaks.

In the Full Light of the Sun

In the Full Light of the Sun PDF Author: Clare Clark
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 054414757X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
Berlin in the 1920s is a city of seedy night clubs and sumptuous art galleries, where nothing is quite what it seems. It is home to Emmeline, a young art student; Julius, an art expert who loves paintings more than people; and Frank, a Jewish lawyer looking for a way to protect both his family and his principles as the Nazis begin their rise to power. Rachmann, a mercurial art dealer-- and newly discovered paintings by Vincent van Gogh-- will provide a scandal that turns all their lives upside down. -- adapted from jacket

The Gallery of Miracles and Madness

The Gallery of Miracles and Madness PDF Author: Charlie English
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0525512063
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
The untold story of Hitler’s war on “degenerate” artists and the mentally ill that served as a model for the “Final Solution.” “A penetrating chronicle . . . deftly links art history, psychiatry, and Hitler’s ideology to devastating effect.”—The Wall Street Journal As a veteran of the First World War, and an expert in art history and medicine, Hans Prinzhorn was uniquely placed to explore the connection between art and madness. The work he collected—ranging from expressive paintings to life-size rag dolls and fragile sculptures made from chewed bread—contained a raw, emotional power, and the book he published about the material inspired a new generation of modern artists, Max Ernst, André Breton, and Salvador Dalí among them. By the mid-1930s, however, Prinzhorn’s collection had begun to attract the attention of a far more sinister group. Modernism was in full swing when Adolf Hitler arrived in Vienna in 1907, hoping to forge a career as a painter. Rejected from art school, this troubled young man became convinced that modern art was degrading the Aryan soul, and once he had risen to power he ordered that modern works be seized and publicly shamed in “degenerate art” exhibitions, which became wildly popular. But this culture war was a mere curtain-raiser for Hitler’s next campaign, against allegedly “degenerate” humans, and Prinzhorn’s artist-patients were caught up in both. By 1941, the Nazis had murdered 70,000 psychiatric patients in killing centers that would serve as prototypes for the death camps of the Final Solution. Dozens of Prinzhorn artists were among the victims. The Gallery of Miracles and Madness is a spellbinding, emotionally resonant tale of this complex and troubling history that uncovers Hitler’s wars on modern art and the mentally ill and how they paved the way for the Holocaust. Charlie English tells an eerie story of genius, madness, and dehumanization that offers readers a fresh perspective on the brutal ideology of the Nazi regime.

Jena 1800

Jena 1800 PDF Author: Peter Neumann
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720541
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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Book Description
“An exhilarating account of a remarkable historical moment, in which characters known to many of us as immutable icons are rendered as vital, passionate, fallible beings . . . Lively, precise, and accessible.” —Claire Messud, Harper’s Around the turn of the nineteenth century, a steady stream of young German poets and thinkers coursed to the town of Jena to make history. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had dealt a one-two punch to the dynastic system. Confidence in traditional social, political, and religious norms had been replaced by a profound uncertainty that was as terrifying for some as it was exhilarating for others. Nowhere was the excitement more palpable than among the extraordinary group of poets, philosophers, translators, and socialites who gathered in this Thuringian village of just four thousand residents. Jena became the place for the young and intellectually curious, the site of a new departure, of philosophical disruption. Influenced by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, then an elder statesman and artistic eminence, the leading figures among the disruptors—the translator August Wilhelm Schlegel; the philosophers Friedrich "Fritz" Schlegel and Friedrich Schelling; the dazzling, controversial intellectual Caroline Schlegel, married to August; Dorothea Schlegel, a poet and translator, married to Fritz; and the poets Ludwig Tieck and Novalis—resolved to rethink the world, to establish a republic of free spirits. They didn’t just question inherited societal traditions; with their provocative views of the individual and of nature, they revolutionized our understanding of freedom and reality. With wit and elegance, Peter Neumann brings this remarkable circle of friends and rivals to life in Jena 1800, a work of intellectual history that is colorful and passionate, informative and intimate—as fresh and full of surprises as its subjects.

Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf PDF Author: Adolf Hitler
Publisher: ببلومانيا للنشر والتوزيع
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 522

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Book Description
Madman, tyrant, animal—history has given Adolf Hitler many names. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), often called the Nazi bible, Hitler describes his life, frustrations, ideals, and dreams. Born to an impoverished couple in a small town in Austria, the young Adolf grew up with the fervent desire to become a painter. The death of his parents and outright rejection from art schools in Vienna forced him into underpaid work as a laborer. During the First World War, Hitler served in the infantry and was decorated for bravery. After the war, he became actively involved with socialist political groups and quickly rose to power, establishing himself as Chairman of the National Socialist German Worker's party. In 1924, Hitler led a coalition of nationalist groups in a bid to overthrow the Bavarian government in Munich. The infamous Munich "Beer-hall putsch" was unsuccessful, and Hitler was arrested. During the nine months he was in prison, an embittered and frustrated Hitler dictated a personal manifesto to his loyal follower Rudolph Hess. He vented his sentiments against communism and the Jewish people in this document, which was to become Mein Kampf, the controversial book that is seen as the blue-print for Hitler's political and military campaign. In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes his strategy for rebuilding Germany and conquering Europe. It is a glimpse into the mind of a man who destabilized world peace and pursued the genocide now known as the Holocaust.