About the Book

An Introduction to Visual Culture provides a wide-ranging introduction to the now established interdisciplinary field of visual culture.

Mapping a global history and theory of visual culture, An Introduction to Visual Culture asks how and why visual media have become so central to everyday life. This new, completely updated second edition has been adapted to match the challenges of interpreting globalization since the publication of the first edition a decade ago.

Improved text design and colour images throughout make it an even more valuable teaching tool. Brand new features in the second edition include Key Image studies from Holbein’s The Ambassadors, to Blade Runner and the Abu Ghraib atrocities; and a Key Words section in each chapter, discussing vital critical terms and the debates that surround them.

In this innovative, thoroughly revised and extended edition, Nicholas Mirzoeff explores:

• An extensive range of visual forms from painting, sculpture, and photography to television, cinema, and the Internet.
• The centrality of ‘race’ and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and the body in shaping visual culture.
• The importance of images of natural disaster and conflict, such as Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing war in Iraq.