This third and final volume of the Famous Japanese Swordsmen trilogy presents more thrilling narrative based on solid sword history. The Period of Unification was one of the great turning points in Japan’s medieval era. After more than two centuries of civil strife Japan finally found its way back to peace and order under three successive rulers: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. The final drive came in the fall of 1600, when Japan’s eastern and western warlords faced each other in the Battle of Sekigahara. It was a decisive battle, in which each and every man who called himself a warrior faced the stark choice between the forces of division and those of unification. Two such men were Ono Jirôemon Tadaaki and Yagyû Tajima no Kami Munenori. Tadaaki, a swordsman from the Kanto, had lost his family and home to become a ronin, a masterless samurai, forced to lead the life of a wanderer. Munenori hailed from the Home Provinces. His clan had first lost its castle, then its lands, until finally they were thrown upon the mercy of a local temple. Having lost everything, both men staked their lives and futures on the victory of the eastern forces.

In this follow-up to Visiting China’s Past, Professor Robert Thorp offers a guided tour of historic Beijing. Beginning with early cities that preceded the modern capital, the author introduces Dadu, established by Khubilai Khan in 1267 and known to Marco Polo as Cambaluc. This guide’s focus, however, is the great architectural monuments of the Ming and Qing dynasties (ca. 1421-1912). Altogether, thirty-two sites are explored in detail: the city’s walls and gates; the imperial city and palaces (the Forbidden City); state altars and imperial tombs; Buddhist and Daoist temples as well as mosques; and residences (both princely mansions and courtyard houses) and gardens. A final chapter summarizes developments of the early twentieth century. Each chapter discusses the history and cultural context of these sites, while entries describe the main structures complemented by numerous plans, photographs, and diagrams. Although both chapters and entries “stand alone,” extensive cross-referencing encourages readers to find related information, and each chapter concludes with suggested titles for further reading. A list of suggested walking tours and an extensive bibliography (both English and Chinese) complete the text. Visiting Historic Beijing is an excellent guide for anyone planning to visit Beijing, and a fascinating introduction to Chinese culture through the architecture and urban planning of one of the world’s most magnificent capitals.

The career of Y.G. Srimati – classical singer, musician, dancer and painter – represents a continuum in which each of these skills and experiences merged, influencing and pollinating each other.

Born in Mysore in 1926, Srimati was part of the generation much influenced by the rediscovery of a classical Sanskrit legacy devoted to the visual arts. Soon swept up in the nationalist movement for an independent India, she was deeply moved by the time she spent with Mahatma Gandhi. For the young Srimati, the explicit referencing of the past and of religious subjects came together in an unparalleled way, driven by the conscious striving for an indigenous agenda. This experience gave form and meaning to her art, and largely defined her style.

As John Guy demonstrates in this sumptuous volume, as a painter of the mid and late twentieth century, Y.G. Srimati embodied a traditionalist position, steadfast in her vision of an Indian style, one which resonated with those who knew India best.

Drawing on the photographic albums in the personal collection of Sir John Marshall, Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902-1928, this volume is a study exploring multiple perceptions of Indian history and related scholarship produced through archaeological fieldwork during the colonial period. The book highlights major sites such as Sanchi, Sarnath, Mohenjodaro and Taxila – often referred to as Marshall’s archaeological triumphs. With over 100 illustrations and an extensive bibliography, this book offers a detailed account of the investigative technique that developed into a commanding disciplinary science-archaeology within British India. Co-published with Alkazi Collection of Photography.

In 2010, the two Lausanne architects Eric Frei and Kaveh Rezakhanlou produced an exceptional school facility in Chermignon, Lower Valais. Like a Greek temple, it has the power to combine the landscape, topography, urban morphology and building type. The architects have also designed further projects with great architectural qualities.

Text in English and German.

Author and photographer John Lander takes the magnificent UNESCO World Heritage sites of Japan as a starting point for exploring the country’s architecture, history, customs and festivals. Lander, who has lived in Japan for 35 years, traveled to almost all the country’s UNESCO sites: from well-known places like Mount Fuji to hidden temple gardens and hard-to-reach wild islands. This book also includes cultural elements listed as intangible world heritage, providing intimate portraits of Japanese cuisine, crafts and performance arts. With a lyrical preface by Pico Iyer and illustrated with over 180 full-color photographs, World Heritage Japan is Lander’s personal photographic tribute to a diverse and ancient culture – a stunning visual journey across Japan.

This essential travel guide to Southern India’s varied heritage covers all the major Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and European historical monuments and sites in Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. There are amazing descriptions of forts and palaces, temple architecture, sculpture and painting, mosques and tombs, churches and civic buildings. Plan trips by using the travel-friendly itineraries, accompanied by useful location maps. This essential travel guide contains comprehensive coverage of the region’s cities and monuments, museums, and archaeological sites. It includes all the major sites the great port cities of Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi; the citadels of Golconda, Vijaynagara and Gingee; the rock-cut sanctuaries at Ajanta and Ellora; the temples at Badami, Halebid and Thanjuvar; the mosques of Hyderabad and Bijapur; and the cathedrals at Goa and hundreds of less well-known places.

150 Gardens You Need to Visit before You Die profiles a selection of the most beautiful gardens in the world, renowned for their exceptional flora, imaginative designs, and inspiring locations. From Kew Gardens in London to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, and from Monet’s garden at Giverny to the Zen garden of the Ryōan-ji Temple in Kyoto, this handsomely bound book captures in words and images the most notable features of these 150 glorious, not-to-be-missed gardens. An essential bucket list book for garden lovers!

Austin is most definitely weird If by “weird”, you mean quirky, offbeat, intriguing, and utterly lovable. The city shares that uniquely Texan pride of place, and yet it has an independent spirit and character all its own. Locals and visitors alike should look no further than these pages to explore some of the weirdest corners of Austin. Try out the latest innovations in a technology petting zoo. Get your car washed among giant dinosaurs. If you dare, spend some time in a garden inspired by Alice Cooper. Soak up the sun on the only official nude beach in Texas. And, of course, in the city of music and food, catch a live show at the spot where Janis Joplin got her start, or enjoy soul food and soul music in someone’s big backyard. Savor some of the best tacos and tamales in a city known for amazing Mexican food.

In this guidebook, you’ll find out where all the secrets are hidden and learn the unknown stories behind them too. Whether you’ve lived here all your life, you’re just passing through, or something in between, you’ll become even more enamored with the capital of Texas in all its inventive, unabashed – and weird – glory.

Punjab, and especially Sikh art, has taken multiple forms ranging from scriptural manuscripts, floral adornments to illustrations and illuminations. This family collection showcases varied forms of jewelry, textiles, arms, coinage, along with construction of religious places and monuments. Murals and frescoes, paintings from Mughal, Punjabi and Pahari styles as well as calligraphy; all enhance the culture and add to its beauty. In addition, foreign artists such as Emily Eden, Shoefft, Soltikoff and other Europeans have left their imprint. The Khanuja Family believes encouragement of art is an essential element in enriching cultural heritage, upliftment of the human spirit, which eventually results in understanding, tolerance and interconnecting us all. This collection is a labor of love which started with an interest in listening to the history of Punjab from elders and subsequently reading about it. Over time with the help of Dr P Khanuja’s daughter, Jasleen it evolved into this expensive passion of collecting artifacts and paintings over the last 14 years.

From the 2nd century CE to the 19th century, the people of the fertile estuary of the great Mekong River created treasures of sacred art, architecture and accomplished feats of water engineering that are coming to light in Vietnam’s vigorous new archaeological research programmes. The large stilted wooden houses of Oc Eo, the early Venice of the maritime routes of the East in the earliest centuries of the first millennium, drew in ships with precious cargoes from Rome, India and China to trade while waiting for the change of the monsoon wind to continue their voyages.

Chinese annals record that the early polity they called ‘Funan’ ruled 1,000 km of coastline along the shipping route. Among the earliest Mekong Delta Buddhist icons are a breathtakingly elegant 2.7m tall Buddha carved in hardwood that has survived more than 1000 years in the delta mud and a 29cm bronze Buddha that arrived on a trading ship from the 6th century Chinese Northern Qi dynasty. Very early Vishnu statues wear high, floral mitres and clasp war conch-trumpets on their left hip, and Shiva’s face stares out from stone lingas.

The Ho Chi Minh Museum collection conserves diverse masterpieces of the art from Vietnam, from the prehistoric Dong Son drums of the Red River Delta in the north to the vibrant Hindu and Buddhist statuary of the former kingdoms of Champa in Central Vietnam. In addition, there is an immense array of art and imperial furnishings of the last Vietnamese dynasty, the Nguyen, which was founded in the Mekong Delta at the beginning of the 19th century. There are refined inlaid wooden cabinets, sets of the finest blue and white ceramics and embroidered silken court costumes worn by the royal family, as well as huge wooden and ceramic Buddha statues which played crucial social and political roles in establishing the dynasty and quelling its foes.

‘Janamsakhis’ are stories about the life of Guru Nanak (1469–1539). They have been circulating orally, in writing, and in paintings and illustrations. B40 is one such documented artistic expression held at the British Library in London. Its 57 beautiful iconotexts narrate the life of the first Sikh Guru from his first day at school to his final moments. The talented artist Alam Chand Raj illustrates Guru Nanak’s sensuous feel for the all-inclusive Divine, his interior and exterior journeys, his manifold inter-faith conversations, his environmental aesthetics, and his marvelous actions. In the language of vibrant colors Guru Nanak’s transcendent materiality and world-affirming existentiality are exquisitely written out. The stylistic infusions of Punjabi art, Chaurapanchasika style and folk-art style of the Rajasthani Malwa School bring the historical Guru close to the viewer. Along with the artwork there is the rich text by Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh explaining the stories from a 21st-century perspective. She insightfully explores the question – how are the Janamsakhis relevant to the political, societal, economic, and environmental state of the world at present.

The textiles here have been organized by several broad categories, beginning with type, and then by area of origin, dating and style. First are ikats and prints from India: the ikats woven in silk as “double ikats” and known as patola, and two prints that are cotton chintz. Though made in India, these textiles were all found in Sumatra, with the patola being highly-prized heirlooms used ceremonially, and the prints being used widely in trade across Indonesia from Sumatra to the Eastern Islands.

Next are ikats and other woven textiles organized by origin, moving West to East, from Sumatra to Borneo, Sulawesi, Bali, and Timor. For all of these pieces, the material was hand spun or commercial cotton, silk, or sometimes a mixture of the two.

Lastly are batiks, mostly from Java. The first three are the oldest batiks in this collection, each of which has been analyzed by radiocarbon dating and found to originate in the 17th and 18th centuries, respectively. These batiks are made on hand spun cotton.

The batiks here are from Sumatra and Java (the great mother-temple of batik artistry), ranging in age, after the proto-batiks described above, from the early 19th century to mid-20th century. They vary in style from the most traditional, including those distinctive in color and pattern from the kratons (palaces) of the sultans, Indian influences from chintz and other Indian imports, to Chinese-inspired depictions of animals, insects, plants and flowers, to French-inspired Art Nouveau mostly via Batik Belanda.

This collection of Indonesian textiles and some related Indian textiles that were popular and influential in Indonesian usage and design came together in a series of collecting periods spanning nearly 40 years.

Written jointly by Graham Watts and Woranuj (Laem) Maneerungsee, both journalists in Thailand, in Thai and English under the pen name Tamlin Bea. This book draws on the famous Thai epic poem and imagines two young teenagers magically transported into the story of The Ramekin.

Totsaken lands two contemporary Thai teenagers in the bewildering world of The Ramakien, in which Prince Ram, assisted by the wily Hanuman and his monkey army, seek to rescue Ram’s wife Sida from the clutches of the Demon King. In this telling, they cannot do it without the help of the children, a girl with near superpower martial arts skills and a boy with nerdish technical skills and the courage of a lion. In the process they have to defend their own world from the rage of the Demon King.

Totsaken is a fast-paced and exhilarating novel requiring no prior knowledge of the poem but brings the Thai epic vividly to life for a new generation. It’s a fantastical, gripping and exhilarating novel.

This book is an attempt to answer the questions: What makes historic architecture awe-inspiring? How have the Indian architectural masterpieces retained their vitality even after so many centuries? What spatial qualities and organizational principles have rendered them timeless?

At the outset the author sets forth fundamental Indian philosophical and ideological tenets—the Indian notion of time, the duality of existence, the concept of a world within a world, the idea of opposites as counterpoints, the role of semiotics in providing visual clues in architecture, and the changing perception of space while in movement. The study unravels the inherent virtues of traditional Indian architecture, inferred and exemplified in a range of traditional Indian architectural examples.

Discussion of each site is illustrated with a wealth of visual materials—photographs, architectural plans with analytic overlays and volumetric constructs. Miniature-style reproductions drawn for each example reconstruct their spatial, environmental and experiential qualities and are used to demonstrate the universality of communication in Indian architecture.

This book aims to tell the story of social history through Money. Money and Art have shared a long history. Both words are metaphors derived from Latin terms used over 2,000 years ago. The word Money derives its modern meaning as the general term for all means of payment from its use as the word for coins in the pre-modern period. Particularly since the introduction of paper money, the word was applied to coins because of the name of the place where coins were made in ancient Rome, the temple of Juno Moneta (Juno the Warner), from this name the word moneta came to mean mint in Latin, and later the product of a mint, i.e. coins. The word Art acquired its modern usage, meaning works of art, both singularly and collectively, from the Latin ars meaning a skill, and it has so been used in English to describe any form of skill, but gradually from the nineteenth century, the word came to signify the product rather than the skill, particularly in relation to painting, graphic works and sculpture. This eclectic collection of stories brings together a multitude of perspectives through collections from the Ashmolean and around the world — from Art Nouveau bank notes and global portrayals of prosperity to activist Money Art. Deep dives into compelling stories reveal humor, hidden surprises and a tension between the power of money and the playfulness of art.

“What is Bangkok like?” asked an American visitor, rhetorically in 1903. Some answer the question by relying on cliches ‘Venice of the east’ or ‘city of places in temples’. Others insisted that its contrasts and contradictions made an easy description impossible.

Bangkok at the turn of the 20th century was a city in transition, mixing as it did east with west and traditions with modernity. Here live the diverse communities which made it what it is today but this collection of writings by a huge variety of visitors to Bangkok captures the city through foreign eyes. 

In Bangkok is a collection of texts which reflect the foreign experience of the city the foreigners in question being both long-term residence and short-term visitors. It draws on a wide range of sources including travel books, memoirs, novels, short stories, verses, inscriptions, newspaper reports, directories and advertisements. It is richly illustrated with contemporary artwork and photographs.

“Words and ideas are as one – and at war – in Finlay’s witty, elegant work…”  — The Guardian

In celebration of the centenary of artist, poet and landscape designer Ian Hamilton Finlay’s birth, Fragments draws together 100 of his artworks. With each piece accompanied by a short text, either by the artist or by a noted writer on Finlay’s work, this book accompanies a series of eight exhibitions taking place in Basel, Brescia, Edinburgh, Hamburg, Palma de Mallorca, London, New York and Vienna in May 2025.

Best known for his Little Sparta – a seven-acre site at Stonypath farm in Scotland that has attained almost-mythical status – and for his installed guillotines, A View to the Temple, at Documenta Kassel 1987, Finlay’s large body of work can be found in museums, parks and gardens worldwide. His artistic creations also incorporate short stories, poems and concrete poetry, many of which have been published by his own publishing house Wild Hawthorn Press, and which, with a mixture of wit and beauty, engage with the relationship between violence and civilization.

Edinburgh is rightly celebrated for its famous historical and cultural attractions. But for the discerning visitor it has much more to offer away from the well-worn tourist trail. This book takes you to hidden corners and secret sights in this city of contrasts, exploring fascinating locations unknown even to most residents, and revealing unexpected aspects of some familiar local landmarks. Marvel at a unique underground temple hewn out of the living rock; learn how a world-famous illusionist came to be buried here – with his dog; find out why the city council once commissioned an enormous electric blanket; look out for the ordinary Edinburgh post box with an explosive history. Discover the human stories behind a wide range of places, both exceptional and commonplace, bringing to life the greatly varied cityscape where people have been leaving their mark for at least 5,000 years.

A Passage to Siam is an award-winning historical novel by Thai novelist V. Vinicchayakul which tells of the tragic romance between Catherine, a young Englishwoman, and Justin, or Prince Vijjuprapha of Siam, during the reign of Rama IV and the beginning of the reign of Rama V, against a backdrop of real life events and characters. The clash of civilizations between East and West that occurred during this period, is reflected in the conflicts between the headstrong young Englishwoman and Justin’s conservative relatives inside the palace. Above all, it is a magnificent and compelling love story that transcends the boundaries of time, religion, race and custom. 

Lucy Srisuphapreeda’s translation will captivate English-speaking readers just as the original work enthralled Thai readers from the time it was written until today.

Miami is a city in constant motion, where luxury high-rises reshape the skyline and vibrant art, neon-lit beaches, and tropical charm create a one-of-a-kind atmosphere. Beyond the lively nightlife lies the serene paradise of the Keys, a chain of islands steeped in history, hidden gems, and sun-soaked adventures.

This guide uncovers Miami and the Keys’ most unusual experiences, inviting you to explore places you’ve passed or never noticed. Discover rotating art displays in a millionaire’s mansion, dance to Latin rhythms in Little Havana, or slide down a two-story chute into a shopping haven.

Dive into crystal-clear waters to explore pirate shipwrecks, visit the country’s smallest post office, or track down Florida’s elusive Skunk Ape. Seek tranquility at a tropical Buddhist temple, stroll through mango groves, and celebrate sunsets at the southernmost point of the U.S. 111 places are waiting to reveal the magic of Miami and the Keys.

Ellora attempts the first systematic overview of the Ellora cave temples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, excavated between 600 CE and 1000 CE and the only cave temple site that houses Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain caves. 

This volume looks at each of these three groups of rock-cut temples and the stylistic influences they drew from each other and from surrounding regions. 

Essays and analyzes by scholars bring a comprehensive understanding of the chronology and stylistic development of the 34 main caves and lesser caves of the site. Ellora also includes extensive photographic documentation, ground plans, and rarely seen early 19th-century etchings of the most significant caves. 

With contributions by Stanislaw J. Czuma, Nicolas Morrissey, Lisa N. Owen, Vidya Dehejia, Pia Brancaccio and Arno Klein. 

Published on the occasion of Ses-li Harfler | Ses-siz Harfler at Dirimart (20 February–24 March 2019), this monograph presents the most comprehensive overview of Özlem Günyol and Mustafa Kunt’s collaborative practice to date, spanning 15 years of production. Living and working in Frankfurt since 2001, the artist duo has developed a body of work that explores geography, politics, language, and systems of measurement through meticulous processes of deconstruction and reconfiguration. The book brings together critical essays by Jörg Heiser, Banu Karaca, and Erden Kosova, as well as a conversation with Jakob Sturm and Felix Ruhöfer, offering multiple perspectives on the artists’ practice. An extensive “Works” section compiles their output from 2003 onward, tracing their investigations into political symbols, migration, belonging, and collective memory. With rigor and precision, Günyol and Kunt transform familiar objects and concepts, opening new possibilities for meaning, and offering courage and hope in re-imagining shared realities.

Text in English and Turkish.