In comparison with many who write about contemporary art, Hare is never self indulgent or wilfully obscure – there is no bogus theorising to be found here. From the Foreword by ALEXANDER MOFFAT Alan Davie • Eduardo Paolozzi • William Turnbull • Janet Boulton • Ian Hamilton Finlay • Joan Eardley • Anthony Hatwell • Colquhoun and MacBryde • Boyle Family • Jack Knox • Barbara Rae • Lys Hansen • Joyce Cairns • Doug Cocker • John Kirkwood • Steven Campbell • Ken Currie • Peter Howson • Henry Ko...

Illustrated with 167 full colour images, this landmark book charts Alexander Moffat's career from student days at Edinburgh College of Art in the 1960s to the recent Scotland's Voices. Iconic portraits of major figures in literature and the other arts are represented. The cultural significance of the visual chronicle Moffat has created lies in his approach to portraiture. He aims not only to capture a sitter's appearance but also to convey something of their inner character, reaching 'a ba...

Space exploration was always an expensive business, and throughout NASA’s history, the agency has had to justify to Congress its need for every dollar it intended to spend. This problem has helped NASA to be more careful and more creative with the money they did receive, and scientists had to justify the equipment they wanted to include on each space probe. They had to justify the size and the power demand, too. If they wanted too much, the entire mission might be scrubbed, and all their w...

“If you do not know where you're going, you should know where you come from.” – Old Gullah ProverbCharming drawls, bluegrass bops, NASCAR, mouthwatering barbecues, and the Great Smoky Mountains are all customs that make America’s Deep South home to some of the most vibrant, powerfully evocative, and culturally rich subregions on the continent, tethered to a heritage that rose from the ashes of the Civil War. There exists, however, a lesser-known, but equally indispensable subcultur...

Though few people are familiar with the story of his life, Charles Ponzi’s name is almost instantly recognizable thanks to the famous financial scandal named after him. This is somewhat ironic because, while his last name has become synonymous with financial scandal and many recognize how a Ponzi scheme works, some have argued that Ponzi really did not know what he was doing while it was taking place. When reading many of the books and articles written about him, it does seem as though Pon...

Although Apollo 11’s successful mission to the Moon is seen as the culmination of the Space Race, and the Apollo program remains NASA’s most famous, one of the space agency’s most successful endeavors came a few years later. In fact, the Pioneer program was the most diversified sequence of any of NASA’s programs, and though they’re now remembered for being among the first probes in history to reach the Outer Solar System, the elaborate planning changed goals several times over several year...

The westward movement of Americans in the 19th century was one of the largest and most consequential migrations in history, and as it so happened, the paths were being formalized and coming into use right around the time gold was discovered in the lands that became California in January 1848. Located thousands of miles away from the country’s power centers on the East Coast at the time, the announcement came a month before the Mexican-American War had ended, and among the very few American...

As archaeologists quickly learned, there are numerous temples dedicated to gods all across Mesoamerica, from the Olmec and Toltec to the Aztec and Maya. Furthermore, thousands of people still gather in the ruins of Mesoamerican cities, even as researchers learn more about the civilizations that continue to fascinate modern societies.To the Aztec, Huitzilopochtli wore a blue-green hummingbird helmet and was draped in pure white heron feathers. He carried a smoking mirror, an obsidia...

On October 21, 1600, two massive Japanese armies, totaling an estimated 200,000 soldiers armed to the teeth with swords, yari (spears), arrows, muskets and cannons, faced off on a battlefield near the town of Sekigahara. A bitter fight to the death ensued, and the results would determine the course of Japanese history for the next 250 years.On the battlefield was the warlord Ieyasu Tokugawa, a man desiring domain over the entire island of Japan, but standing in his way was Ishida M...

"I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against me, but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch." – Ty Cobb"Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit." – Babe RuthAs one of America’s oldest and most beloved sports, baseball has long been touted as the national pastime, but of all the millions of people who have played it over the last few centuries, few have influenced Major League Baseball like Ty Cobb, whose career spanned o...

For nearly two centuries, the Jews and Greeks of the region were able to live in relative peace. The Seleucid rulers allowed the Jews to practice their religion unmolested, and many of the Jews adopted aspects of Hellenism in order to ingratiate themselves with the rulers. Eventually, though, a number of factors led to a Jewish revolt against Seleucid rule that started in 167 BCE and came to be known as the Maccabean Revolt.The uprising came about as the result of a growing sense o...

After being forced out of Rhodes by the Ottomans in the early 16th century, the Knights Hospitaller spent seven years residing in Sicily without an official home or garrison, but around 1530, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V decided to gift the order the islands of Malta and Gozo, as well as the port city of Tripoli in North Africa, as a fiefdom. The emperor’s motivations varied, but most historians believe he granted the knights the territory partially out of religious devotion and mainly to ...