With his instantly recognizable decorative style, Czech artist and Art Nouveau master Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) defined the look of the fin-de-siecle. In evocative shades of peach, gold, ochre and olive, his seductive compositions of patterns, flowers and beautiful women became a mainstay of illustration, posters, postcards, and advertising designs of the day. In particular, his posters of star actress Sarah Bernhardt have become paradigms of the...

In the period of radical change that was 1963-1983, young black artists at the beginning of their careers in the USA confronted key questions and pressures. How could they make art that would stand as innovative, original, formally and materially complex, while also making work that reflected their concerns and experience as black Americans? This significant new publication, accompanying an exhibition at Tate Modern, surveys this crucial period in...

"Ghosts are the only monsters that most people actually believe in." A folklorist friend of mine said this to me when I was in the early stages of working on this project. His words really colored the scope of this book, which in its entries not only explains certain ghost lore and ghost-related phenomena, but considers the psychological and sociological reasons that representations of the ghost exist almost by necessity in different cultures and...