Synopses & Reviews
If our world can be divided into three parts--sea, land, and sky--the sea is, of the three, the most alien and mysterious. Characterized by movement and change, by random patterns of light and dark, by transcendental calm and tempestuous anger, the sea assaults our senses and stokes our imagination.
A spectacular portfolio, Peter Neill's On a Painted Ocean contains images from around the world that revel in the visual language of the ocean. Captured in this full-color volume are some of the great classics, and undiscovered treasures, of maritime art. The work of the 17th and 18th century Dutch and English masters are featured alongside a number of less familiar works, many heretofore outside the established marine tradition. Sculpted figures from Africa, painted bowls from ancient Greece, wall murals from pre-Columbian Mexico, tomb decorations from Egypt, and manuscripts from Arabia join the European masters in evoking the force and beauty of the sea. The book's essays take readers from exploration to war, from conflict to commerce, from sustenance to trade, from wreck to technological revolution, examining along the way historical depictions and folk tales, chronicles of endurance, some celebrations, and many tragedies.
For anyone who has ever set sail or merely admired the oceans and its vessels from shore, On a Painted Ocean will instill a greater appreciation of the maritime world.
Synopsis
Argues that the social meaning of race emerges from a contradiction between the ideology of equality and the reality of inequality
Today, race seems to be both everywhere and nowhere. There still exists a general abhorrence about discriminating between people according to their race. And yet, people are continually categorized according to their race--Afro- Caribbean, white, Jewish--though we often have difficulty in defining just what race is. Everything from criminality to the entrepreneurial spirit is given a racial connotation--witness stereotypes of black muggers or Asian shopkeepers.The Meaning of Race argues that the social meaning of race in modern society emerges from the contradiction between an ideological commitment to equality and the persistence of inequality as a practical reality. Kenan Malik here follows the development of racial ideology over the past two hundred years, tracing the different forms it has taken, from biological theories of race to the relationship between race and culture. Specific attention is focused on the impact of the break up of the postwar order and the end of the Cold War and the concomitant repoliticization of the notion of racial difference. Malik goes on to critique the poststructuralist and postmodern theories of difference which have become the backbone of contemporary antiracist discourse, and to examine the possibility of transcending the discourse of race.
Synopsis
Today, race seems to be both everywhere and nowhere. There still exists a general abhorrence about discriminating between people according to their race. And yet, people are continually categorized according to their race--Afro- Caribbean, white, Jewish--though we often have difficulty in defining just what race is. Everything from criminality to the entrepreneurial spirit is given a racial connotation--witness stereotypes of black muggers or Asian shopkeepers.
The Meaning of Race argues that the social meaning of race in modern society emerges from the contradiction between an ideological commitment to equality and the persistence of inequality as a practical reality. Kenan Malik here follows the development of racial ideology over the past two hundred years, tracing the different forms it has taken, from biological theories of race to the relationship between race and culture. Specific attention is focused on the impact of the break up of the postwar order and the end of the Cold War and the concomitant repoliticisation of the notion of racial difference. Malik goes on to critique the poststructuralist and postmodern theories of difference which have become the backbone of contemporary antiracist discourse, and to examine the possibility of transcending the discourse of race.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 292-303) and index.
About the Author
A former President of the Council of American Maritime Museums and a former Director of maritime preservation of the National Trust for Historical Preservation in the United States, Peter Neill is currently president of the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City.