Reaktion Books – serie

The Yardbirds were trailblazers in the rapid development of pop music in Britain between 1963 and 1968. With members including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, they helped to set the basic template of what has been known ever since as rock music, and gave rise to one of the most commercially successful bands of all time: Led Zeppelin. Peter Stanfield situates the band in the evolution of British R&B and the tumult of the psychedelic era. Obsessively detailed about both the band and 1960s pop culture, this is the book fans of the Yardbirds have always needed.

This is a captivating, richly illustrated history of the use of fired clay in Korea, spanning ancient times to the present day. Drawing on the latest research from Korean scholars, Precious beyond Measure features a wide range of examples from archaeological sites and museums. In addition, it offers a rare glimpse into the world of modern North Korean ceramics.Beth McKillop and Jane Portal devote substantial chapters to the refined celadons of the Goryeo and porcelains of the Joseon dynasties from the tenth to the twentieth century, as well as an array of blue-and-white vessels. Merging maritime archaeology, textual evidence and kiln excavation reports, this book engages with Korea’s domestic and international spheres in surprising ways. Throughout history, Koreans have cherished their ceramic heritage. This overview reveals a remarkable and enduring tradition.

The central argument of Chromophobia is that a chromophobic impulse – a fear of corruption or contamination through colour – lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought. This is apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge colour, either by making it the property of some ‘foreign body’ – the oriental, the feminine, the infantile, the vulgar, or the pathological – or by relegating it to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential, or the cosmetic.Chromophobia has been a cultural phenomenon since ancient Greek times; this book is concerned with forms of resistance to it. Writers have tended to look no further than the end of the nineteenth century. David Batchelor seeks to go beyond the limits of earlier studies, analysing the motivations behind chromophobia and considering the work of writers and artists who have been prepared to look at colour as a positive value. Exploring a wide range of imagery including Melville’s ‘great white whale’, Huxley’s reflections on mescaline, and Le Corbusier’s ‘Journey to the East’, Batchelor also discusses the use of colour in Pop, Minimal, and more recent art.

This book takes the reader on an immersive journey through medieval manuscript production in the Latin Christian world. Each chapter opens with a lively vignette by a medieval narrator – including a parchment-maker, scribe and illuminator – introducing various aspects of manuscript production. Sara J. Charles poses the question ‘What actually is a scriptorium?’, and explores the development of the medieval scriptorium from its early Christian beginnings through to its eventual decline and the growth of the printing press. With the written word at the very heart of the Christian monastic movement, we see the immense amount of labour, planning and networks needed to produce each individual manuscript. By tapping into these processes and procedures, we can experience medieval life through the lens of a manuscript maker.

Hayek vs Keynes: A Battle of Ideas offers a clear historical account of the works of the two great totems of modern economic thought: Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money were written against a background of devastation following the First World War. Thomas Hoerber explains the historical context in which the books were written and shows how lessons can be drawn for current economic and political phenomena, such as the recent financial crisis, globalization and European integration. He illustrates how classical economic theory as well as a qualitative method in economics can enlighten our understanding of the present economic environment. With a broad European perspective, this book places the two great economic thinkers of the twentieth century in their historical context, and asks what we can learn from their work today.

Zerox Machine is an immersive journey through the vibrant history of British punk and its associated fanzines from 1976 to 1988. Drawing on an extensive range of previously unpublished materials sourced from private collections across the UK, Matthew Worley describes and analyses this transformative era, providing an intimate glimpse into the hopes and anxieties that shaped a generation.Far more than a showcase of covers, this book examines the fanzines themselves, offering a rich tapestry of first-hand accounts, personal stories and subcultural reflections. Through meticulous research and insightful analysis, Matthew Worley captures the spirit and essence of British youth culture, not only shedding new light on a pivotal movement in music history but crafting a unique alternative history of Britain in the 1970s and ’80s.

The Crimean Tatars were the Turkic-speaking native peoples of Crimea who established a powerful khanate in the 1440s, which remained in power until 1783. In this, the first history in English for over 100 years, eminent scholar Donald Rayfield shows that this misunderstood and much-feared nation was in fact a flourishing state with a vibrant literary culture, religious tolerance, a sophisticated constitution and a prosperous economy. Rayfield’s book describes the establishment of the khanate, its reign and its eventual fall, concluding with a vivid portrayal of the Tatars’ ruthless suppression – first by Russia and then the Soviet Union – and the final, effectively genocidal, invasion under Vladimir Putin.This vibrant and ultimately tragic chronicle is essential reading for anyone interested in the background to the current war in Ukraine.

Winner of the Franco-British Society Literary Award 2025.Émile Zola is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest writers, whose reputation was reinforced by his historic intervention in the Dreyfus Affair. This book explores Zola’s life and work and the ways in which these were determined by the traumatic history of his times. From humble beginnings, Zola's life was marked by the determination to succeed. Robert Lethbridge traces Zola's development as a writer, including the earliest texts and his novel-cycles, and further shows how Zola’s extraordinary creativity extended from his journalism to experiments in the theatre and even his own operatic adaptations of his novels. Lethbridge offers the reader new perspectives, informed by the most recent research, which bring together Zola’s writing and its historical context.

Those They Called Idiots traces the little-known lives of people with learning disabilities from the communities of eighteenth-century England to the nineteenth-century asylum and care in today’s society. Using evidence from civil and criminal court-rooms, joke books, slang dictionaries, novels, art and caricature, it explores the explosive intermingling of ideas about intelligence and race, while bringing into sharp focus the lives of people often seen as the most marginalized in society.

We live in an age where Hitler and the Nazis dominate our cultural imagination, shaping values once defined by religion. In this book historian Alec Ryrie explores why society remains captivated by this struggle, from history and fiction to modern myths such as Star Wars and Harry Potter. He examines the costs of our Nazi obsession and questions what will come as our anti-Nazi moral consensus frays and both the Left and Right begin to move on. With a fresh take on modern history and pop culture, The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It offers a thought-provoking look at the culture wars and our shifting political crises, challenging assumptions on both sides and asking what a new moral vision might look like.