Clothing - 10.The Complete History of Costume & Fashion: From Ancient Egypt to the Present Day by Bronwyn Cosgrave

Product Details

Hardcover: 256 pages

Publisher: Checkmark Books; Reprint edition (February 1, 2001)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0816045747

ISBN-13: 978-0816045747

          Now a multibillion-dollar global obsession, fashion from clothes and jewelry to makeup and grooming has reflected both individual identity and cultural mores since the beginning of history, declares Bronwyn Cosgrave, an editor at British Vogue. The Complete History of Costume & Fashion: From Ancient Egypt to the Present Day is a well-written, lavishly illustrated resource that, the author maintains, corrects many of the errors found in previously published references. Fashion-magazine devotees will enjoy flipping through this beautiful, engaging book just as much as serious students of the subject will relish poring over it. 

Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

4/5 A good general costume history

By "daniel0302" on September 8, 2001

This is a beautifully designed publication certain to be rewarding to someone seeking an overview of the subject. The text, while not truly in depth, is very readable and is written in a vernacular yet polished style. Customs of the various cultures and periods, along with manners and gender roles in society, are covered as well. Ancient Europe and the Mesopotamian cultures (Sumer, Babylon, and Assyria) are omitted. Some of Ms. Cosgrave's information about other early cultures - especially the Egyptians - does not totally coincide with other authors and should not be taken as gospel, but rather as a possible interpretation. In other chapters, some of the observations and conclusions are quite insightful. The illustrations are wonderful and astutely chosen (with the exception of some 19th century line drawings used to illustrate early Egyptian, Greek and Roman costume.) The illustrations are also reproduced well, and the number of color plates is quite abundant for a book of this price. The books main weakness, and this is a big weakness, is that these beautiful and well chosen illustrations are not consistently attributed with the date, name of the work, artist, or museum, and in fact some of them are incorrectly identified or dated. Also, in the sections of the book on the 19th and 20th centuries - both in the illustration placement as well as the text - the reader does not really get a clear picture of the looks of the individual decades and periods within these centuries. Given the rapid changes of silhouettes and styles that occur in these years, a more thorough and detailed account would be welcome. With these notable reservations, this publication has still achieved reasonable success, and is still a recommendable text on the subject, especially for novices. The attractive price - especially the Amazon price - makes this a good value as well and contributes to its overall rating.

          I believe that this book will give its readers a large source of material about clothing's transition to different styles and forms from century to century, and will teach its readers about the important changes in societal structures that came with clothing.   

Clothing - 9.Clothing: A Global History Paperback by Robert Ross

Product Details

Paperback: 232 pages

Publisher: Polity; 1 edition (July 8, 2008)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0745631878

ISBN-13: 978-0745631875

In virtually all the countries of the world, men, and to a lesser extent women, are today dressed in very similar clothing. This book gives a compelling account and analysis of the process by which this has come about. At the same time it takes seriously those places where, for whatever reason, this process has not occurred, or has been reversed, and provides explanations for these developments.

The first part of this story recounts how the cultural, political and economic power of Europe and, from the later nineteenth century North America, has provided an impetus for the adoption of whatever was at that time standard Western dress. Set against this, Robert Ross shows how the adoption of European style dress, or its rejection, has always been a political act, performed most frequently in order to claim equality with colonial masters, more often a male option, or to stress distinction from them, which women, perhaps under male duress, more frequently did.

The book takes a refreshing global perspective to its subject, with all continents and many countries being discussed. It investigates not merely the symbolic and message-bearing aspects of clothing, but also practical matters of production and, equally importantly, distribution.

4/5 Intriguing read so far

By R. Downes on January 25, 2013

I haven't finished it yet, but it's been very enlightening so far. Clothes are used by the conquerors to help subjugate the conquered. It explains why the Western Europeans were so successful in spreading their standards of dress to much of the world.

          I believe that this book will teach its readers about the distribution of clothing and fashion style throughout the world while maintaining a large portion of the novel to enlighten the readers about the effects on society clothing had.  

Clothing - 8.Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style by DK Publishing

Product Details

Hardcover: 480 pages

Publisher: DK ADULT (October 1, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0756698359

ISBN-13: 978-0756698355

          Tracing the evolution of fashion — from the early draped fabrics of ancient times to the catwalk couture of today — Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style is a stunningly illustrated guide to more than three thousand years of shifting trends and innovative developments in the world of clothing.

          Containing everything you need to know about changing fashion and style — from ancient Egyptian dress to Space Age Fashion and Grunge — and information on icons like Marie Antoinette, Clara Bow, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Alexander McQueen, Fashion catalogs the history of what people wear, revealing how Western fashion has been influenced by design from around the world and celebrating costume and haute couture.

          Fashion will captivate anyone interested in style — whether it's the fashion-mad teen in Tokyo, the wannabe designer in college, or the fashionista intrigued by the violent origins of the stiletto and the birth of bling.

5/5 Upholds the DK Name

By C. Heiremans on November 1, 2012

I own multiple DK books and multiple volumes about the history of fashion. This book follows DK's tradition of gorgeous, informative coffee table books, as well as offering new information to someone with an amateur interest in historical dress. (For some context, here are some of the fashion books I already own: Taschen's Fashion, John Peacock's The Chronicle of Western Costume, and John Peacock's 20th Century Fashion.)

The chapters focus on eras, and within those, the individual page spreads focus on specific topics (suits, sportswear, silhouettes, etc.) with multiple pictures of outfits on each page in a timeline format. DK uses this format to trace different trends, so sometimes there are several spreads that cover the same decade. The book differs from Taschen's and Peacock's books in that it has much more explanatory text and a greater variety of pictures: full costume photos, detail photos, period illustrations from advertisements and fashion plates, and examples from fine art.

This tome covers men's and women's fashion from King Tut to Kate Middleton, and mostly focuses on Western costume. If you're an expert on the history of fashion, this may end up being little more than a book of pretty pictures for you (and pretty pictures they are!). If you have a hobbyist's interest, then this book has a lot to offer. Either way this book definitely lays out information in a way that cannot be found anywhere else.

          I believe that this novel will teach its readers how certain styles of dress came about and how they evolved and progressed through eras of time. This book will also teach its readers about how events in those eras shifted the style of dress and how styles of clothing were spread across the world. 

Gold - 7.Money, Gold, and History by Lewis E. Lehrman

Product Details

Print Length: 276 pages

Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0984017836

Publisher: The Lehrman Institute (July 1, 2013)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Language: English

ASIN: B00DQG5QL8

In Money, Gold, and History, Lewis E. Lehrman raises three questions:

1) Will the perennial global monetary crisis and the century-old age of inflation still be underway a generation from now?

2) Will the global economy have succumbed to national rivalries, mercantilism, financial disorder, and entropy?

3) Or, will monetary order have been restored by the leading nations of the world in their own self-interest?

          The solution is authorized by the United States Constitution in Article I, Sections 8 and 10 whereby the control of the quantity of dollars in circulation is entrusted to the hands of the people because the definition of the dollar was entrusted to Congress. In 1792, Congress defined by statute the dollar as a specific weight unit of precious metal.

5/5 The perfect prescription for years of bad monetary policy

By Jon Decker on July 9, 2013

Lewis Lehrman's new work "Money, Gold, and History" is a highly-informative overview of how a sound dollar leads to economic growth. Lehrman recaps the history of the gold-backed dollar, and explains how years of poor monetary policy have impacted the world. This is a must-read for anyone who is curious as to why our post-recession "recovery" has been so sluggish!

          I believe that this book will teach its readers about the effects that money, or more precisely, gold, had on the economy of the world, and how that change has effected the world up to today. 

Gold - 6.The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession by Peter L. Bernstein

Product Details

Hardcover: 304 pages

Publisher: Wiley; Illustrated Edition edition (October 25, 2004)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0470091002

ISBN-13: 978-0470091005

          In the first chapter of his book The Power of Gold, Peter Bernstein quotes the immortal words of King Ferdinand of Spain, who once declared: "Get gold, humanely if possible, but at all hazards--get gold." As ensuing chapters reveal, man's obsession with finding, keeping, selling, and evaluating gold has rarely been a humane adventure and has always been a hazardous one. Digging deeply into history's treasury of torrid tales and complicated deals, Bernstein examines gold's lure with an economist's passion for quantification, a historian's eye for detail, and a sociologist's feel for its consequence.

          Useless as a metal for most practical purposes, gold originally held value as decoration and adornment for the wealthy ancients. Later, it was minted and used as coins by the Lydians in 635 B.C. That, Bernstein goes on to reveal, put gold on a path from the concrete to the abstract, from evidence of wealth to the standard behind wealth in other forms, and finally to the tenuous place it holds in today's virtual world of credit cards and computer chips. Along the way lie wild stories of lives destroyed, fortunes won and quickly lost, and values transformed: the massacre by the Spanish invader Pizarro, whose small band of men decimated the formidable army of Emperor Atahualpa, "the Inca," through more duplicity than military skill; the roller-coaster ride of the 1890s, when the rippling impact of the Baring Brothers bank crisis in Britain sent the isolated United States into an economic meltdown; and the surplus of the Gold Coast natives of Timbuktu, who willingly traded their gold for much-needed salt, ounce for ounce.

          Bernstein is a great storyteller. His accounts of mythological, ancient, and recent history ooze with odd and entertaining details that bring each successive tale of obsession to life. If not for his skill, the sheer volume of events collected here--presented more anecdotally than systematically--would be overwhelming. In the end, though, it is Bernstein's fascination with the power of gold to entangle and entrap its possessors, and its ultimate ability to change the course of entire eras and civilizations, that makes his book as fascinating as it is informative. A dense but entertaining read. --S. Ketchum --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

4/5 Dense, somewhat boring but will probably endure

By A Customer on October 12, 2000

It appears from the obvious publisher-placed comments that I may be one of the few people who has actually READ this book. With his no-doubt legions of researchers, Peter Bernstein obviously has his facts at hand, and they are plentifully strewn throughout the book. But this is not a business book, it is a history book about the enduring lure of the element Au. It took me about a week to finish this, and I found much of it interesting. But overall, I thought that it read like a well-researched thesis that will probably stand the test of time. There are some truly fascinating stories in it, and it is well written, but don't expect this book to tell you how to find gold or how to make enough money to buy gold. It is what it is: the history of a metal that has never lost its luster. 

          I believe that this novel will allow its readers to dive into the history of wealth in the world and how people were moved by it. However, I also believe that the book will fall short of giving the readers a good amount of information concerning the trade of gold up to modern days.

Gold - 5.War and Gold: A Five-Hundred-Year History of Empires, Adventures, and Debt by Kwasi Kwarteng

Product Details

Print Length: 442 pages

Page Numbers Source ISBN: 158648768X

Publisher: PublicAffairs (May 27, 2014)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Language: English

ASIN: B00IHGVRJM

          The world was wild for gold. After discovering the Americas, and under pressure to defend their vast dominion, the Habsburgs of Spain promoted gold and silver exploration in the New World with ruthless urgency. But, the great influx of wealth brought home by plundering conquistadors couldn’t compensate for the Spanish government’s extraordinary military spending, which would eventually bankrupt the country multiple times over and lead to the demise of the great empire.

          Gold became synonymous with financial dependability, and following the devastating chaos of World War I, the gold standard came to express the order of the free market system. Warfare in pursuit of wealth required borrowing—a quickly compulsive dependency for many governments. And when people lost confidence in the promissory notes and paper currencies issued during wartime, governments again turned to gold.

          In this captivating historical study, Kwarteng exposes a pattern of war-waging and financial debt—bedmates like April and taxes that go back hundreds of years, from the French Revolution to the emergence of modern-day China. His evidence is as rich and colorful as it is sweeping. And it starts and ends with gold.

5/5 Beg, borrow, or steal -- but buy this book! 

By John Johnson on August 1, 2014

This is an excellent book. Clearly written, full of facts but never boring. I first read it on my basic Kindle, and then bought the paper copy because I needed to go back and forth, re-read sections to learn the material thoroughly. War And Gold is a very complete history of the ebb and flow of nations, relative to the security and worth of their currency. To be clear -- and this is important -- the writer is not a fanatical 'gold bug', advocating a return to the gold standard of the 1800s, nor is he an rabid Keynesian 'just print the money' advocate. As a result, this book has balance -- very, very important if you want to get a handle on international financial affairs, and where we are heading -- in this new 21st century where most major economies are printing lots of money, still recovering from the '08 Crash. 'Most' meaning all the usual suspects, except, well, China. What's coming next? Read the book. And get the paperback -- for this one, it's much more usable than the Kindle version, well worth the small amount of extra money. Five stars, only because I can't give it ten!

          I believe that this book will teach its readers about the accumulation of gold and wealth in countries and how it was able to move between them. This book will also give the readers forethought about what is to come when dealing with the shifts of money. 

Gold - 4.Gold: The Race for the World's Most Seductive Metal by Matthew Hart

 Product Details

Print Length: 305 pages

Page Numbers Source ISBN: B00GG006L6

Publisher: Simon & Schuster (December 3, 2013)

Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc

Language: English

ASIN: B00BSAZ5A6

          In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the price of gold skyrocketed—in three years more than doubling from $800 an ounce to $1900. This massive spike drove an unprecedented global gold-mining and exploration boom, much bigger than the Gold Rush of the 1800s. In Gold, acclaimed author Matthew Hart takes you on an unforgettable journey around the world and through history to tell the extraordinary story of how gold became the world’s most precious commodity.

          Beginning with a page-turning dispatch from the crime-ridden inferno of the world’s deepest mine, Hart pulls back to survey gold’s tempestuous past. From the earliest civilizations, 6,000 years ago, when gold was an icon of sacred and kingly power, Hart tracks its evolution, through conquest, murder, and international mayhem, into the speculative casino-chip that the metal has become. Hart describes each boom and bust in gold’s long story, culminating in the swift and startling emergence of China as the world’s new gold titan. In writing that Publishers Weekly calls “polished and fiery,” Hart weaves together history and cutthroat economics to reveal the human dramas that have driven our lust for a precious yellow metal.

   

4/5 Everything you wanted to know about gold (maybe more) 

By W. Gaboda on January 30, 2014

This book is a geek's guide to gold: one learns EVERYTHING about this mysterious metal, especially its rarity and difficulty of production. The section that describes descending MILES into the South African rocks is enough to make one shudder with claustrophobia.

Even more enlightening is the description of the 'blood' aspect of production: the desperate labor of the poor and often lawless miners is chilling. Amazing efforts go into producing minuscule amounts of this pretty but not especially useful metal.

If you are of a technical mind-set or are interested in gold for its monetary aspects, this book makes a very good read.

          I believe that this book will teach its readers about the effects that the introduction of gold had on society, and what reproductions occurred because of it.