In 2020, the invisible realm of micro-matter came to shape our lives in unprecedented ways. A virus so small that it is only visible through advanced electron microscopes suddenly threatened global economies, brought healthcare systems to the brink of collapse, pushed countless people into extreme poverty, amplified fierce political and social …
World War II radically altered the image of many European cities. Some, like Warsaw and Dresden, were almost completely destroyed, and became symbols both of war-time barbarism and of the recuperative power of their respective nations. Others, like Wroc?aw (previously Breslau) and Lviv (previously Lwów-Lvov), were assigned by the signatories of international treaties to a different st…
The Pacific ‘grass skirt’ has provoked debates about the demeaning and sexualised depiction of Pacific bodies. While these stereotypical portrayals associated with ‘nakedness’ are challenged in this book, the complex uses and meanings of the garments themselves are examined, including their link to other body adornments and modifications. In nineteenth-century Fiji, beautiful fibre skir…
The study of signs, portents observed in the physical and social worlds indicating the will of supernatural agents and the course of future events, was undoubtedly important in all ancient cultures. The first written evidence for a concept of sign, however, comes from cuneiform texts of ancient Mesopotamia.