Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Fragments of history: Rethinking the Ruthwell and Bewcastle monuments is an innovative study of the two premier survivals of pre-Viking Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture. Both monuments are rich in finely carved images and complex inscriptions. Though in some way related, in this book, they have very different histories. This ambitious study draws the reader in through a vivid exposition of the problems left by earlier interpretations, shows him or her how to understand the monuments as social products in relation to a history of which our knowledge is so fragmentary, and concludes with a deeply persuasive discussion of their underlying premises. Orton, Wood and Lees bring their research in art history and antiquarianism, history and archaeology, medieval literature, philosophy and gender studies into a successful and coherent whole, organised around certain key notions, such as place, history and tradition, style, similarity and difference, time, textuality and identity. Theoretically astute, rigorously researched, vivid and readable, Fragments of history is a model of how interdisciplinary research can be conducted, written and published. It will be required reading in a number of disciplines, including art history, Anglo-Saxon studies, medieval language and literature, history and ecclesiastical history, antiquarianism and archaeology.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of figures and plates (p. vi)
• Acknowledgements (p. x)
• Part I Before photography
• 1 Camera portabilis: god, space and optics--the visualisation of mobility before 1840 (p. 3)
• Part II The nineteenth century
• 2 The reverie of power: Victorian travel photography and the depiction of Egypt, the Holy Land and India (p. 16)
• 3 Worlds in a house: the consumption of travel photography in the Victorian middle-class home (p. 52)
• Part III Tourisms
• 4 Paradox amusements: tourism and the modern image (p. 70)
• 5 Travel products: promoting the tourist vision (p. 79)
• 6 Sabulous: the beach, the camera and social display (p. 92)
• 7 Fixing Arcadia: the photographic paradise (p. 107)
• Part IV Twentieth-century trails
• 8 Neither here nor there: photographers, exiles, the faces of strangers (p. 122)
• 9 Disappearance: twentieth-century photography, art and travelling (p. 158)
• References (p. 197)
• Index (p. 213)