Material culture
Showing all 10 results
-
A brief history of the countryside in 100 objects
£10.99A brief history of the countryside in 100 objects
A Waterstones Best Book of 2024: Nature Writing
The untold story of rural Britain revealed through its artefacts
?‘A really lovely, fascinating book. I dived straight into this clever, joyous, celebration of nature, history, and – of course – the countryside.’ Charles Spencer, author of The White Ship
£10.99 -
All that she carried
£12.99All that she carried
A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a deeply layered and insightful testament to people who are left out of the archives
£12.99 -
Antarctica
£25.00Antarctica
This powerfully relevant work tells the history of Antarctica through 100 varied and fascinating objects drawn from collections around the world. Retracing the history of Antarctica through 100 varied and fascinating objects drawn from collections across the world, this book is published to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the first crossing into the Antarctic Circle by James Cook aboard Resolution, on 17th January, 1773.
£25.00 -
Embers of the hands
£25.00Embers of the hands
Imagine a Viking, and a certain image springs to mind: a nameless, faceless warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorise the hapless local population of a northern European country. Yet while such characters define the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. This is the history of all the other people – children, enslaved people, seers, artisans, travellers, writers – who inhabited the medieval Nordic world. Encompassing not just Norway, Denmark and Sweden, but also Iceland, Greenland, parts of the British Isles, Continental Europe and Russia, this is a history of a Viking Age filled with real people of different ages, genders and ethnicities, as told through the traces that they left behind, from hairstyles to place names, love-notes to gravestones.
£25.00 -
Less
£22.00Less
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTELLER
‘Utterly brilliant. We all need to read this book’ CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN
‘Patrick’s book is fascinating and sobering and makes a compelling argument for going back to basics’ JOE LYCETT
£22.00 -
Loot
£9.99Loot
Meet Abbas. Woodcarver, toy maker, dreamer. Abbas is seventeen when he is whisked away to Tipu Sultan’s glorious palace in Mysore. Apprenticed to the legendary clockmaker Monsieur Du Leze, he is ordered to create an ingenious musical tiger to delight Tipu’s sons. In the eccentric Du Leze, Abbas finds an unexpected friend who encourages his skill and hunger for learning, and through whom he also meets the unforgettable Jehanne, who has questions and ambitions of her own. But when British soldiers attack and loot Mysore, Abbas’s world is turned upside down and his prized tiger is shipped off to a country estate in England. In order to carve out his place in the world, he must follow.
£9.99 -
Material
£12.99Material
In our present age of computer-assisted design, mass production and machine precision, the traditional skills of the maker or craftsperson are hard to find. Yet the desire for well-made and beautiful objects from the hands (and mind) of a skilled artisan is just as present today as it ever has been. Whether the medium they work with is wood, metal, clay or something else, traditional makers are living links to the rich vein of knowledge and skills that defines our common human heritage. For nearly four decades Nick Kary has worked on commission to make fine, distinctive furniture and cabinets from wood, most of it sourced near his home, in the counties of South West England. In this book, Kary takes readers along with him to visit some of the places where modern artisans are preserving, and in some cases passing on, the old craft skills.
£12.99 -
The secret Middle Ages
£20.00The secret Middle Ages
The Secret Middle Ages is a controversial and completely fresh view of the medieval world through its rare and amazing artefacts
£20.00 -
Winston Churchill
£14.99Winston Churchill
A books which traces Churchill’s life in the news from cradle to grave, showing how tensions between tradition and novelty played into his constantly evolving media image.
£14.99 -
Writing on the wall
£10.99Writing on the wall
What if walls could talk? For historian Madeleine Pelling, they can – if you know where to look. A history of the long eighteenth century, ‘Writing on the Wall’ is told through the marks its citizens left behind, bringing into focus lost voices from the highest to the lowest in society. From the centre of London to the islands of the Caribbean, Pelling goes in search of graffiti, evidence of how ordinary people experienced the world-changing events that defined their lives – from political prisoners to sex workers, homesick sailors, Romantic poets and the artisans of the industrial revolution.
£10.99