Western art has long sought to find a perfect method of representing the body. At the same time as we have lost faith in the certainty of the modernist project, the perfect, straight, white body of modernism is now seen as fiction. But what sort of body will take its place? This work explores body images in visual culture, from revolutionary France to contemporary New York. It engages with artists' use of different kinds of body images in painting, sculpture, photography and film, and shows the centrality of the body in the work of artists from da Vinci to Manet, from Paul Strand to Kiki...

Groundbreaking and compelling, Watching Babylon examines the experience of watching the war against Iraq on television, on the internet, in the cinema and in print media.

Mirzoeff shows how the endless stream of images flowing from the Gulf has necessitated a new form of visual thinking, one which recognises that the war has turned images themselves into weapons. Drawing connections between the history and legend of ancient Babylon, the metaphorical Babylon of Western modernity, and everyday life in the modern suburb of Babylon, New York, Mirzoeff explores ancient concerns...

This groundbreaking book examines the experience of watching the war against Iraq on television, on the Internet, in print media and in cinema. Looking at the endless stream of images from Iraq requires a new form of visual thinking that highlights the intersection of local and global while recognizing the way in which the war turned images themselves into weapons. Making striking connections between the history and legend of ancient Babylon, the Babylon that is Western modernity and everyday life in the modern suburb of Babylon, New York, Nicholas Mirzoeff explores that part of the ancient...