The Making Of Modern Man

‘Fascinating and authoritative’ The Daily Express Sunday Times bestselling author Sean Smith tells the extraordinary story of a modern cultural icon: Harry Styles.

Otto Neurath?s famous Modern Man in the Making, first published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1939, captures and describes the state of the world in the 1930s by using text and figurative illustrations. From 1925 onwards, Neurath and his team had worked on a new visual language termed Isotype? (International System of Typographic Picture Education). At a time that saw the rise of new mass media making hitherto unthinkable amounts of information available, Neurath felt the need for a systematic visualization explaining facts, statistic data and comparative numbers in simple ways. The book can be seen as one of the most influential predecessors of today?s ever-present infographics. Its mission was to analyze the fundamental trends in the social, political and economic life of humanity.? The topics covered in the book include diverse social issues of the time such as mortality, health, employment, trade, education, mobility, migration and demographics.0Modern Man in the Making shows Neurath?s democratic endeavor to make knowledge intelligible and available to all. It is a reminder of graphic art?s ability to inform and create context instead of presenting aesthetic qualities only. The book has inspired generations of designers and led to sometimes peculiar imitations and further developments. This pivotal historical picture-text book is made available again as a reprint of the original publication in the series XX The Century of Print at a time in which new media force designers ever more so to break down complex data into easily comprehensible depictions.

Mountaineering has served as a metaphor for civilization triumphant. A fascinating study of the first ascents of the major Alpine peaks and Mt. Everest, The Summits of Modern Man reveals the significance of our encounters with the world’s most forbidding heights and how difficult it is to imagine nature in terms other than conquest and domination.

Adam Sandler movies, HBO's Entourage, and such magazines as Maxim and FHM all trade in and appeal to one character--the modern boy-man. Addicted to video games, comic books, extreme sports, and dressing down, the boy-man would rather devote an afternoon to Grand Theft Auto than plan his next career move. He would rather prolong the hedonistic pleasures of youth than embrace the self-sacrificing demands of adulthood. When did maturity become the ultimate taboo? Men have gone from idolizing Cary Grant to aping Hugh Grant, shunning marriage and responsibility well into their twenties and thirties. Gary Cross, renowned cultural historian, identifies the boy-man and his habits, examining the attitudes and practices of three generations to make sense of this gradual but profound shift in American masculinity. Cross matches the rise of the American boy-man to trends in twentieth-century advertising, popular culture, and consumerism, and he locates the roots of our present crisis in the vague call for a new model of leadership that, ultimately, failed to offer a better concept of maturity. Cross does not blame the young or glorify the past. He finds that men of the "Greatest Generation" might have embraced their role as providers but were confused by the contradictions and expectations of modern fatherhood. Their uncertainty gave birth to the Beats and men who indulged in childhood hobbies and boyish sports. Rather than fashion a new manhood, baby-boomers held onto their youth and, when that was gone, embraced Viagra. Without mature role models to emulate or rebel against, Generation X turned to cynicism and sensual intensity, and the media fed on this longing, transforming a life stage into a highly desirable lifestyle. Arguing that contemporary American culture undermines both conservative ideals of male maturity and the liberal values of community and responsibility, Cross concludes with a proposal for a modern marriage of personal desire and ethical adulthood.

Journalist Flint recounts the life and times of the legendary architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, aka Le Corbusier, and provides illuminating details of his most iconic projects.

In this extensive inquiry into the sources of modern selfhood, Charles Taylor demonstrates just how rich and precious those resources are. The modern turn to subjectivity, with its attendant rejection of an objective order of reason, has led—it seems to many—to mere subjectivism at the mildest and to sheer nihilism at the worst. Many critics believe that the modern order has no moral backbone and has proved corrosive to all that might foster human good. Taylor rejects this view. He argues that, properly understood, our modern notion of the self provides a framework that more than compensates for the abandonment of substantive notions of rationality. The major insight of Sources of the Self is that modern subjectivity, in all its epistemological, aesthetic, and political ramifications, has its roots in ideas of human good. After first arguing that contemporary philosophers have ignored how self and good connect, the author defines the modern identity by describing its genesis. His effort to uncover and map our moral sources leads to novel interpretations of most of the figures and movements in the modern tradition. Taylor shows that the modern turn inward is not disastrous but is in fact the result of our long efforts to define and reach the good. At the heart of this definition he finds what he calls the affirmation of ordinary life, a value which has decisively if not completely replaced an older conception of reason as connected to a hierarchy based on birth and wealth. In telling the story of a revolution whose proponents have been Augustine, Montaigne, Luther, and a host of others, Taylor’s goal is in part to make sure we do not lose sight of their goal and endanger all that has been achieved. Sources of the Self provides a decisive defense of the modern order and a sharp rebuff to its critics.

Pendergast traces the shift in US periodicals from Victorian masculinity--which valued character, integrity, hard work, and duty--to modern masculinity--which valued personality, self- realization, and image. Arguing that the rise of mass consumer culture was a key factor in the change, he describes how such magazines as American Magazine, Esquire, and True presented masculinity in ways that reflected the magazines' relationship to advertisers, contributors and readers. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

This is the definitive volume on Craig Ellwood, a visionary architect, designer, and tastemaker often called the “California Mies van der Rohe.” Craig Ellwood, “the Cary Grant of architecture,” was one of the most visible faces of California mid-century modernism. He was known as much for his exquisitely designed, minimalist structures as he was for his exuberant lifestyle. This book celebrates and explores the glamour of Ellwood’s work, life, myth, and career. Through photographs, primarily of the iconic houses he designed in Southern California during the 1950s and ’60s, we see a life of refined decadence, expressed through gorgeous architecture, fast cars, beautiful women, Hollywood style, palm trees, swimming pools, and minimalist design—all in the context of the Southern California postwar building boom. This volume will appeal to design junkies, architecture buffs, students of modernism, and anyone interested in problem-solving and elegant solutions.