Making and Growing brings together the latest work in the fields of anthropology and material culture studies to explore the differences - and the relation - between making things and growing things, and between things that are made and things that grow. Though the former are often regarded as artefacts and the latter as organisms, the book calls this distinction into question, examining the implications for our understanding of materials, design and creativity. Grounding their arguments in case studies from different regions and historical periods, the contributors to this volume show how...

In 987, when Hugh Capet took the throne of France, founding a dynasty which was to rule for over 300 years, his kingdom was weak and insignificant. But by 1100, the kingdom of France was beginning to dominate the cultural nd religious life of western Europe. In the centuries that followed, to scholars and to poets, to reforming churchmen and monks, to crusaders and the designers of churches, France was the hub of the universe. La douce France drew people like a magnet even though its kings were, until about 1200, comparatively insignificant figures. Then, thanks to the conquests and...