Polynesian Pop. How Tiki became an American dream

Dive into one of the most colorful pop culture phenomena of mid-century America. In this handy edition gathering hundreds of images and ephemera, urban archaeologist Sven Kirsten takes us on a journey through Tiki history, from the first Pacific island exploration to Hollywood jungle fantasies and elaborate temples built to celebrate Tiki as the god of recreation.

Urban islands and bamboo hideaways set the stage for a pop culture phenomenon like no other. In mid-century America, the imaginative appeal of Tiki penetrated fashion, music, eating, drinking, and architecture.

In handy Bibliotheca Universalis format, Tiki Pop traces the development of Tiki as romantic vision and cultural appropriation. Follow Tiki from James Cook's first Pacific Island expeditions, through Gauguin's exotic paintings, Hollywood jungle fantasies, and elaborate temples erected to celebrate Tiki as the god of recreation. With hundreds of images, Tiki the pop icon unfolds from its earliest, enthusiastic beginnings to its spectacular downfall in the dawning awareness of the Western world’s colonial misdeeds.

This book is the culmination of the extensive research of Sven Kirsten, urban archaeologist, Tiki sage, and author of earlier TASCHEN investigations, The Book of Tiki and Tiki Modern, which first recovered the figure of Tiki from obscurity. In his widely lauded graphic style, Kirsten places venerable ancient godheads next to their Polynesian pop counterparts, movie posters next to matchboxes, comic strips next to Robinson Crusoe illustrations. The result is at once a visual feast, a piece of cultural history, and a tribute to a very particular vision of paradise.

The author:

Sven Kirsten is a cinematographer and urban archaeologist. It was his love for visuals that inspired him to collect and photograph the remnants of the forgotten culture of Polynesian pop in America, leading him to identify the Tiki as its icon. As a hunter and gatherer of lost artifacts and ephemera of this phenomenon, he began to see the pattern of a unique art form, and decided to publish his findings in the Book of Tiki in September 2000. Four books later, the cult of Tiki has made a spectacular comeback.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

And the moon came nearer. Journey back to July 20, 1969

One of the greatest writers of the 20th century captures the definitive event of modern science. Discover the men, the machinery, and the sheer thrill of the lunar mission with Norman Mailer’s dazzling account of the Apollo 11 adventure, illustrated by hundreds of photographs.

It has been called the single most historic event of the 20th century: On July 20, 1969, after a decade of tests and training, supported by a staff of 400,000 engineers and scientists, and with a budget of billions, the most powerful rocket ever launched brought Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon.

Nobody captured the men, the mood, and the machinery like Norman Mailer, hired by LIFE magazine to cover the mission in a dazzling reportage he later enhanced into the brilliantly crafted book, Of a Fire on the Moon.

Rediscover this epoch-making event with TASCHEN’s adaptation of Mailer’s account, now in our popular Reader's Edition so you can really curl up and travel not just back in time, but into outer space. The text is accompanied by hundreds of photographs from the NASA vaults, the archives of LIFE, and other leading magazines of the day, documenting the development of the agency and the mission, life inside the command module and on the moon’s surface, as well as the world’s jubilant reaction to the landing.

Captions by leading Apollo 11 experts explain the history and science behind the images, citing the mission log, publications of the day, and postflight astronaut interviews, while an evocative introduction by Colum McCann celebrates Mailer’s incomparable skill at transforming “the science of space...the weight of history...the breadth of mythology” into prose.

The author:

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) was one of the 20th century’s greatest and most influential writers, as well as one of America’s most renowned and controversial literary figures. The best-selling author of a dozen novels and 20 works of nonfiction, he also wrote stage plays, screenplays, television miniseries, hundreds of essays, two books of poetry, and a collection of short stories. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he lived in Brooklyn, New York, and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

The contributing author:

Colum McCann is  the author of eight books, including Let the Great World Spin. He has written for The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, GQ, The Times (London), The Irish Times, and La República.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Music for the eyes. The inventor of album art

"I love music so much and I had such ambition that I was willing to go way beyond what the hell they paid me for. I wanted people to look at the artwork and hear the music."  Alex Steinweiss

Alex Steinweiss (1917–2011) invented the album cover as we know it. In 1940, as Columbia Records young new art director, he pitched an idea: Why not replace the standard plain brown wrapper with an eye-catching illustration? The company took a chance, and within months its record sales increased by over 800 per cent.

Over the next three decades, Steinweiss made thousands of original artworks for classical, jazz, and popular record covers for Columbia, Decca, London, and Everest; as well as logos, labels, advertising material, even his own typeface, the Steinweiss Scrawl. His daring designs, gathered here in all their bright combinations of bold typography with modern, elegant illustration, revolutionized the way music was sold.

The book includes Steiweiss personal recollections and ephemera from an epic career, as well as insightful essays by three-time Grammy Award-winning art director/designer Kevin Reagan and graphic design historian Steven Heller.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Another country: Introducing America to Americans

Amid the ravages of the Great Depression, the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) was first founded in 1935 to address the country s rural poverty. Its efforts focused on improving the lives of sharecroppers, tenants, and very poor landowning farmers, with resettlement and collectivization programs, as well as modernized farming methods. In a parallel documentation program, the FSA hired a number of photographers and writers to record the lives of the rural poor and introduce America to Americans.

This book records the full reach of the FSA program from 1935 to 1943, honoring its vigor and commitment across subjects, states, and stylistic preferences. The photographs are arranged into four broad regional sections but otherwise allowed to speak for themselves to provide individual impressions as much as they cumulatively build an indelible survey of a nation. Through color and black-and-white images, we meet convicts, cotton workers, kids on the street, and relocated workers on the road. We see subjects victim to the elements of nature and the timeless rituals of human life, as much as to the vagaries of the global economic market. We meet Dorothea Lange s iconic Migrant Mother, weather-beaten and worn, with two children leaning on her shoulders.

What unites all of the pictures is a commitment to the individuality and dignity of each subject, as much as to the witness they bear to this particular period of the American past and to universal cycles of growing, playing, eating, aging, ailing, and dying. Through the lenses of such perceptive, sensitive photographers as Dorothea Lange, Jack Delano, Russell Lee, Marion Post Wolcott, Walker Evans, and Ben Shahn, subjects are entrenched in the hardships of their historical lot, caught in the loop of humanity, and yet face the viewer with what is utterly their own: a unique, irreplaceable, often unforgettable presence.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Into the Night. All you need to know about Film Noir

Explore the dark and brooding elegance of Film Noir with this essential handbook to the genre, exploring key noir themes and their most representative movies. Copiously illustrated with film stills as well as original posters, the book also lists TASCHEN’s top 50 noir classics. A must for amateurs and aficionados alike.

Whether it’s Double Indemnity, Kiss Me Deadly, or The Big Sleep, roam a screen world of dark and brooding elegance with this essential handbook to Film Noir. From private eyes and perfect crimes to corrupt cops and doomed affairs, editors Paul Duncan and Jürgen Müller examine noir’s key themes and their most representative movies from 1940 to 1960.

Copiously illustrated with film stills as well as original posters, this book offers page after page of noir’s masterful visual compositions while exploring the narrative paradigms of this cryptic, compelling, and evolving genre. If that weren’t enough to tickle your cinematic appetite, the volume concludes with TASCHEN’s top 50 pick of noir classics.

Brimming with the enigmatic dames, desperate gangsters, and psycho killers that continue to cast a long and captivating shadow over cinema, this is a must-have handbook for noir aficionados and amateurs alike.

The authors:

Film producer, critic and historian Alain Silver is the author of 20 books on cinematic topics, including The Noir Style, LA Noir, the Film Noir Reader series, and Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra, and Katharine Hepburn for TASCHEN's Icon Series. His audio commentaries on classic film noir DVDs include Call Northside 777 and Double Indemnity. A member of the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Writers Guild of America, he graduated from UCLA with degrees in film production and critical studies.

James Ursini has co-written eleven books with Alain Silver, including their Film Noir Reader series, which established them as two of the foremost authorities on film noir. Ursini has also written for various film magazines and supplied the commentary for numerous classic film noir DVDs. He has a doctorate in motion pictures studies and lectures on filmmaking in the Los Angeles area.

The editors:

Paul Duncan is a film historian whose TASCHEN books include The James Bond Archives, The Charlie Chaplin Archives, The Godfather Family Album, Taxi Driver, Film Noir, and Horror Cinema, as well as publications on film directors, film genres, movie stars, and film posters.

Jürgen Müller holds the chair of Early Modern and Modern Art History at the Technical University of Dresden. He studied art history at the universities of Bochum, Münster, Pisa, Paris and Amsterdam, and has worked as an art critic and curated numerous exhibitions. He is also the editor for TASCHEN’s movies by decade series.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Rising-Sun Retreats. Today’s most exceptional abodes in Asia

Traditional architecture meets cutting-edge design in this compact showcase of Asian living. Travelling across Tibet, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, and Malaysia, we enter the Shiv Niwas Palace featured in Octopussy, gilded Tibetan monasteries, a high-rise overlooking the Singaporean skyline, and many more breathtaking abodes.

Zen, soothing, mystical, meditative — words cannot do justice to Asia’s most beautiful interiors. Whether it’s a gilded Tibetan monastery, a plantation in Sri Lanka, or a private villa in Thailand, each of the havens featured in this book are remarkable not only in aesthetic, but also in spirit.

This showcase features 46 exceptional locations across Tibet, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Highlights include traditional Burmese stilt houses; the breathtaking Shiv Niwas Palace in India, visited by James Bond in Octopussy; Cambodian temples; a rice barge-turned houseboat in Thailand; a high-rise apartment overlooking the Singaporean skyline; the “Blue Mansion”, an magnificient, indigo-painted courtyard house featured in the film Indochine; a breathtaking garden designed by Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa; and many, many more.

The photographer:
Swiss photographer Reto Guntli, based in Zurich, regularly travels the world shooting for international magazines. He has published numerous books and contributed to such TASCHEN publications as Inside Asia, Living in Japan, Living in Bali, Great Escapes Asia and Great Escapes Europe.

The author:

Sunil Sethi is a leading journalist, newspaper columnist, and television anchor based in India. His writings have appeared in a variety of publications around the world. 

The editor:

Angelika Taschen studied art history and German literature in Heidelberg, gaining her doctorate in 1986. Working for TASCHEN from 1987, she has published numerous titles on art, architecture, photography, design, travel, and lifestyle.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Infallible Eye. Johannes Vermeer, creator of life from oil paint

Discover one of the most admired artists in history: Johannes Vermeer. Complete with crisp reproductions, details, and insightful essays, this monograph spans his entire repertoire, illuminating the artist’s outstanding ability not only to bear witness to the spirit of the Dutch Golden Age, but also to encapsulate an entire story in just one transient gesture, expression, or look.

Despite numbering at just 35, his works have prompted a New York Times bestseller; a film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth; record visitor numbers at art institutions from Amsterdam to Washington, DC; and special crowd-control measures at the Mauritshuis, The Hague, where thousands flock to catch a glimpse of the enigmatic and enchanting Girl with a Pearl Earring, also known as the “Dutch Mona Lisa”.

In his lifetime, however, the fame of Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) barely extended beyond his native Delft and a small circle of patrons. After his death, his name was largely forgotten, except by a few Dutch art collectors and dealers. Outside of Holland, his works were even misattributed to other artists. It was not until the mid-19th century that Vermeer came to the attention of the international art world, which suddenly looked upon his narrative minutiae, meticulous textural detail, and majestic planes of light, spotted a genius, and never looked back.

This edition brings our complete catalogue of Vermeer’s work to the compact Bibliotheca Universalis format, presenting the calm yet compelling scenes so treasured in galleries across Europe and the United States into one monograph of utmost reproduction quality. Crisp details and essays tracing Vermeer’s career illuminate his remarkable ability not only to bear witness to the trends and trimmings of the Dutch Golden Age but also to encapsulate an entire story in just one transient gesture, expression, or look.

About the Author:

After completing his studies of art history and archaeology at the University of Vienna, Karl Schütz joined the staff of the Gemäldegalerie of the city’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, serving from 1972 as a curator and from 1990 to 2011 as its director. His particular scholarly interests include Netherlandish and Flemish painting, early-16th-century German painting, courtly portraiture, and the history of the Gemäldegalerie collection.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Fine Lines. 100 illustrators to remember

Drawn from TASCHEN’s Illustration Now! series, this go-to catalogue brings together 100 of the most successful and important illustrators around the globe. With featured artists including Istvan Banyai, Gary Baseman, Seymour Chwast, Paul Davis, Brad Holland, Mirko Ilić, Anita Kunz, and Christoph Niemann, the international overview provides an invigorating record of the dynamism and diversity of the illustration scene.

Each illustrator is featured with a self-portrait, samples from their portfolio, and a succinct description by Steven Heller, with a supplementary list of selected exhibitions and publications. In his introduction, Steven Heller describes the dynamic realm of illustration today and the challenging process of selection within this highly competitive and ever-moving genre.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Form Meets Function. The industrial designs that shape our lives

If you take even the slightest interest in the design of your toothbrush, the history behind your washing machine, or the evolution of the telephone, you’ll take an even greater interest in this completely updated edition of Industrial Design A–Z.

Tracing the evolution of industrial design from the Industrial Revolution to the present day, the book bursts with synergies of form and function that transform our daily experience. From cameras to kitchenware, Lego to Lamborghini, we meet the individual designers, the global businesses, and above all the genius products that become integrated into even the smallest details of our lives.

Alongside star designers like Marc Newson and Philippe Starck and major global brands like Braun and Apple, lesser-known and newcomer entries such as Brompton Bicycles and Enercon wind turbines attest to product design’s restless pace, as well as to today’s most pressing challenges and priorities to which it must turn its creative invention.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Light up your life. Luminary design of the 20th century

Designed to be a companion to our classic title 1000 Chairs, this edition contains an awesome selection of over 1,000 lights. Presented chronologically by decade are the 20th century’s most interesting electric lights, from Tiffany’s beautiful leaded-glass shades to completely outrageous designs from the late 1960s and 1970s to the latest high-tech LED lamps. All major styles are represented here — Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Modern Movement, De Stijl, Postwar, Pop, Radical, Post-Modern, and Contemporary — in 640 pages of truly illuminated works.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

In the beginning, there was light. The George Eastman House Collection: photography throughout the ages

From a delivery boy to one of the most important industrialists in American history, George Eastman’s career developed in a particularly American way. The founder of Kodak died in 1932 and left his house to the University of Rochester. Since 1949 the site has operated as an international museum of photography and film, and today holds the largest collection of its kind in the world. The continually expanding photography collection contains over 400,000 images and negatives - among them the work of Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Ansel Adams and others - as well as 23,000 cinema films, five million film stills, one of the most important silent film collections, technical equipment and a library with 40,000 books on photography and film. The George Eastman House is a pilgrimage site and a place of worship for researchers, photographers and collectors from all over the world.

This volume shows in chronological order the most impressive images and the most important developments in the art of light that is photography. It provides in its huge collection and themes a unique survey of the medium from its origins until now.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Window on the world. Travelling the world with an architect's eye

Architect Harry Seidler spent more than 50 years travelling the globe, extensively photographing the peak achievements in architecture from 3000 B.C. to the present day. Thanks to sound advice given to him early on by his photographer brother Marcell (“Only use Leica cameras and Kodachrome film, which is archival”), Seidler’s hobby quickly developed into a passion and, finally, an impressive archive of world architecture.

Including, of course, many of the world’s most famous architectural structures, Seidler’s photographs illustrate the history and style — country by country — of architecture in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. Divided into chapters by country, each with a brief introduction outlining its architectural history, The Grand Tour offers armchair travellers, students, architecture buffs, and historians the opportunity to browse the buildings of the world through one man’s photographs —the fruits of a passionate, half-century endeavour.

About the Author:

Born in Vienna, Austria, Harry Seidler studied architecture at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg before winning a scholarship to Harvard, where he studied under Walter Gropius. He also studied under Josef Albers at Black Mountain College in North Carolina and was the chief assistant of Marcel Breuer in New York from 1946 to 1948. He worked with Oscar Niemeyer in Rio de Janeiro before opening his own practice in Sydney in 1949. He has taught at the Harvard School of Design, the ETH in Zurich, and the University of Sydney. In 1996, Seidler was awarded the RIBA gold medal. He died on March 9, 2006.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Life in the Woods. Creative cabin architecture, from California to Sapporo

Yearning for rustic simplicity? Open the door to Cabins, a gorgeous showcase of minimal, low-impact, peaceful abodes around the world. From contemplative bliss in an English coastal studio to eco-home huts in the Western Ghats of India, each of these minimal homes exude innovative, eco-friendly, mindful living.

Ever since Henry David Thoreau’s described his two years, two months, and two days of refuge existence at Walden Pond, Massachusetts, in Walden, or, Life in the Woods (1854), the idea of a cabin dwelling has seduced the modern psyche. In the past decade, as our material existence and environmental footprint has grown exponentially, architects around the globe have become particularly interested in the possibilities of the minimal, low-impact, and isolated abode.

This Bibliotheca Universalis edition of Cabins combines insightful text, rich photography, and bright, contemporary illustrations by Marie-Laure Cruschi to show how this particular architectural type presents special opportunities for creative thinking. In eschewing excess, the cabin limits actual spatial intrusion to the bare essentials of living requirements, while in responding to its typically rustic setting, it foregrounds eco-friendly solutions. The cabin comes to showcase some of the most inventive and forward-looking practices of contemporary architecture, with Renzo Piano, Terunobu Fujimori, Tom Kundig, and many fresh young professionals all embracing such distilled sanctuary spaces.

The book showcases the variety of cabins in use and geography. From an artist studio on the Suffolk coast in England to eco-home huts in the Western Ghats region of India, this collection is as exciting in its international reach as it is in its array of briefs, clients, and situations. Constant throughout, however, is architectural innovation, and an inspiring sense of contemplation and coexistence as people return to nature and to a less destructive model of being in the world.

About the author:

Philip Jodidio studied art history and economics at Harvard, and edited Connaissance des Arts for over 20 years. His TASCHEN books include the Architecture Now! series and monographs on Tadao Ando, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel, Shigeru Ban, Oscar Niemeyer, and Zaha Hadid.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Trees of Paradise. All known genera of the palm family in 240 exquisite illustrations

On December 15, 1868, Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868), Professor of Botany at the University of Munich and director of the Royal Botanic Garden, was carried to his grave in a coffin covered with fresh palm leaves. The fronds were a reference to his groundbreaking Natural History of Palms: a work in three volumes, published between 1823 and 1853.

This encyclopedic treasury of 240 exquisite chromolithographic illustrations was based on von Martius’s expeditions through Brazil and Peru. From 1817 to 1820, he travelled over 2,250 km (1,400 miles) through the Amazon basin to investigate natural history and native tribes with zoologist Johann Baptist von Spix.

The result was an unrivalled catalogue of all known genera of the palm family, outlining the modern classification of palms, describing all the palms of Brazil, and producing the first maps of palm biogeography. Von Martius’s folio is unusual in its inclusion of cross-sectioned diagrams, conveying the architecture of these mighty trees, which central Europeans would have found hard to imagine accurately. Equally remarkable are the colour landscapes showing various palms—often standing alone in simple and elegant beauty.

The author:

H. Walter Lack is a Professor at the Free University of Berlin and former Director of the Botanical Gardens and Botanical Museum in Berlin-Dahlem. A leading expert in the history of botany, his research focuses on the global transfer of useful and ornamental plants from a cultural-historical perspective. He is the author of TASCHEN’s Garden of Eden and The Book of Palms.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Let there be light. Medieval bible manuscripts in impeccable reproduction

In the beginning, was the word, and in the Middle Ages were kings, princes, and high-ranking religious members whose wealth and influence produced illustrated bibles of extraordinary craftsmanship.

This Bibliotheca Universalis edition brings together 50 of the finest medieval bible manuscripts from the Austrian National Library. With examples from every epoch of the Middle Ages, the collection explores visualizations of the bible in various theological and historical contexts. In impeccable reproduction quality, these stunning images may be appreciated as much as art historical treasures as they are important religious artefacts.

Texts by Andreas Fingernagel, Stephan Füssel, Christian Gastgeber, and a team of 15 scientific authors describe each manuscript in detail, exploring both the evolution of the Bible and the medieval understanding of history. A glossary of important terms is also included so that those not versed in bible history can enjoy the texts as well.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, the name TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together nearly 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisiac.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!