The Kisokaido route through Japan was ordained in the early 1600s by the country’s then-ruler Tokugawa Ieyasu, who decreed that staging posts be installed along the length of the arduous pass...
Simon “Woody” Wood, founder and editor-in-chief of Sneaker Freaker magazine, has spent the last two decades analyzing the global cult of footwear fanatics. That experience directly insp...
The exquisite storybook of Kay Nielsen’s enchanting tale illustrationsIn the late 1910s, in a Europe ravaged by World War I, Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen put the finishing touches on ...
Mysterious and mathematical at once, the magical visual world of Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898–1972) has captivated scientists and scholars and made its mark on popular culture, inspiring bo...
The making of the Eiffel Tower“The Tower is also present to the entire world... a universal symbol of Paris... from the Midwest to Australia, there is no journey to France which isn&rsq...
A bewitching history of a magickal practiceInitiating readers in the fascinating and complex history of witchcraft, from the goddess mythologies of ancient cultures to the contemporary embrac...
The life’s work of an infographics pioneerFritz Kahn (1888–1968) was a German doctor, educator, popular science writer, and information graphics pioneer. Chased out of Germany by ...
Playthings From the Past For the PresentUp until the 20th century, children’s play was not a subject that demanded much attention. While objects that entertained children have been pres...
The world’s greatest magicians from the Middle Ages to the 1950sMagic has enchanted humankind for millennia, evoking terror, laughter, shock, and amazement. Once persecuted as heretics ...
Sebastião Salgado traveled the Brazilian Amazon and photographed the unparalleled beauty of this extraordinary region for six years: the forest, the rivers, the mountains, the people who liv...
It’ll knock both your eyes out!Some call it the American obsession, but men everywhere recognize the hypnotic allure of a large and shapely breast. In The Big Book of Breasts, Dia...
Stories and speculations on office spaceImmerse yourself with architects Florian Idenburg and LeeAnn Suen as they journey through a wide-ranging collection of the objects, systems, and buildi...
The essential ImpressionistNo other artist, apart from J. M. W. Turner, tried as hard as Claude Monet (1840–1926) to capture light itself on canvas. Of all the Impressionists, it was th...
A visual journey through Vienna’s dazzling historyVienna combines drama and elegance like no other. For centuries the heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the stately city on the Danub...
What’s Wrong in Tinseltown?The dark side of Los Angeles, 1920–1950In the years following World War I, Los Angeles was a city awakening to its darker side, transforming...
“A woman once rang me up and said, ‘Mr. Escher, I am absolutely crazy about your work. In your print Reptiles, you have given such a striking illustration of reincarnation.’ I rep...
A tour of contemporary home decor around the worldWith an inspirational richness and diversity of styles, these homes, residences, hideaways, and studios will astound and astonish, no matter ...
Capitol Records – from 1942 to todayFrom the Beatles to Beck, Sinatra to Sam Smith, a parade of era-defining artists have passed through the doors of the Capitol Records Tower, one of H...
With his smooth, warm, ruddy face which radiated light in all directions, Chairman Mao Zedong was a fixture in Chinese propaganda posters produced between the birth of the People’s Republic i...
At the vivid intersection of cinematic and graphic design history, this book gathers 250 film posters from the Soviet Union of the 1920s and early 1930s to explore a world of innovative, revolution...