Utilizing a variety of ancient sources, including cuneiform texts, images and archaeological finds, Luxury and Legitimation explores how the collecting of luxury objects contributed to the formation of royal identity in one of the world's oldest civilizations, ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Allison Thomason makes a significant and timely contribution to the subjects of collecting and material culture studies by bringing a new understanding to the political, cultural and social institutions of an important pre-Classical, non-Western civilization.
Despite being vastly different both socially and economically, art and fashion are increasingly converging to collaborate in mutually advantageous ways. This book discusses the mutual benefits of collaboration through analysis of successful case studies, including corporate art collections and museums, patronage and sponsorship initiatives, and art-based brand management in the fashion sector. It provides a categorization of the strategies that fashion firms employ when they join the art world and illustrates how art and fashion brands can interact strategically at different levels. This book will be a valuable resource to researchers, providing an enhanced understanding of the potential of artification for managing brands and products.
"The main aim of this thoughtful and thought-provoking book is to characterize and explain the difference between pre-scientific systems of belief within which science could, and did, emerge and develop. Using the armoury of both philosophy and anthropology, Ernest Gellner attacks his task with his customary sharp wit and polemical gusto." - Times Literary Supplement.
Critical Theory originated in the perception by a group of German Marxists after the First World War that the Marxist analysis of capitalism had become deficient both empirically and with regard to its consequences for emancipation, and much of their work has attempted to deepen and extend it in new circumstances. Yet much of this revision has been in the form of piecemeal modification. In his latest work, Habermas has returned to the study of capitalism, incorporating the distinctive modifications of the Frankfurt School into the foundations of the critique of capitalism. Drawing on both systems theory and phenomenological sociology as well as Marxism, the author distinguishes four levels of capitalist crisis - economic, rationality, legitimation, and motivational crises. In his analysis, all the Frankfurt focus on cultural, personality, and authority structures finds its place, but in a systematic framework. At the same time, in his sketch of communicative ethics as the highest stage in the internal logic of the evolution of ethical systems, the author hints at the source of a new political practice that incorporates the imperatives of evolutionary rationality.
Examine luxury branding on a global scale, with more than fifty cutting edge contributions from the foremost thought leaders in luxury management and marketing. The Management of Luxury, second edition, presents a unique snapshot of best practice insights into the increasing challenges faced in luxury business, with contributions shared by more than fifty global leaders on luxury management. The highly renowned editors draw these together into one essential handbook, ranging from luxury brand strategy, luxury consumer behaviour and market positioning, through to management succession, heritage, counterfeiting and competing effectively as a luxury SME. Fully updated in its second edition, The Management of Luxury explores the newly evolving direction of Asian market trends and how to integrate digitalization into sales and product strategies. Both are crucial for competitive advantage in the luxury market, featured alongside iconic case studies such as Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Leica. The book's value is not only in streamlining management processes and return on investment; but equally for those who marvel at an industry unlike any other, striving to trust both in the conventional and innovate new paths towards the extraordinary. Highly influential, applicable and enlightening, it is a vital addition to every luxury business manager's collection.
The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704–681 BC), Part 1 (Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 3/1) provides reliable, up-to-date editions of thirty-eight historical inscriptions of Sennacherib. The texts edited in RINAP 3/1, which comprise approximately a sixth of the Sennacherib known corpus of inscriptions, were inscribed on clay cylinders, clay prisms, stone tablets, and stone steles from Nineveh; describe his many victories on the battlefield; and record numerous construction projects at Nineveh, including the city’s walls and the “Palace Without a Rival.” Each text edition (with its English translation) is supplied with a brief introduction containing general information, a catalogue containing basic information about all exemplars, a commentary containing further technical information and notes, and a comprehensive bibliography. RINAP 3/1 also includes: (1) a general introduction to the reign of Sennacherib, his military campaigns, his building activities at Nineveh, the corpus of inscriptions, previous studies, and dating and chronology; (2) translations of the relevant passages of several Mesopotamian chronicles and kinglists; (3) several photographs of objects inscribed with texts of Sennacherib; (4) indices of museum and excavation numbers and selected publications; and (5) indices of proper names (Personal Names; Geographic, Ethnic, and Tribal Names; Divine, Planet, and Star Names; Gate, Palace, Temple, and Wall Names; and Object Names). The RINAP Project is under the direction of G. Frame (University of Pennsylvania) and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Matt Erlin considers books and the culture around books during this period, focusing specifically on Germany where literature, and the fine arts in general, were the subject of soul-searching debates over the legitimacy of luxury.
"Sherman's insightful ethnography sheds light on the interactional dimension of symbolic boundaries and class relations as they are lived by luxury hotel clients and the workers who serve them. We learn how both groups perform class through emotion work and deepen our understanding of the role played by "niceness" in constituting equality and reversing hierarchies. As such, Class Acts is a signal contribution to a growing literature on the place of the self concept in class boundaries. It will gain a significant place in a body of work that broadens our understanding of class by moving beyond structural determinants and taking into consideration the performative, emotional, cognitive, and expressive dimensions of inequality."--Michele Lamont, author of The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration "Eye-opening, amusing, and appalling, Rachel Sherman's Class Acts explains how class inequality is normalized in the refined atmosphere of luxury hotels. This beautifully observed and engagingly written ethnography describes what kinds of deference and personal recognition money can buy. Moreover, it shows how workers who provide luxury service avoid seeing themselves as subordinate and how those whose whims are catered to are made comfortable with their privilege. Class Acts is a sobering and timely account of the legitimation of extreme inequality in a culture that prizes egalitarianism."--Robin Leidner, University of Pennsylvania "Rachel Sherman provides a penetrating and engrossing study of workers and guests in luxury hotels. Do workers resent the guests? Do guests disdain the workers? Sherman argues neither is true-and explains why."--Julia Wrigley, author of Other People's Children
