《英国维多利亚阿伯特博物馆藏中国家具》翻译自克雷格·克鲁纳斯所著，维多利亚阿伯特博物馆系列丛书之《中国家具》。作者以维博历年所藏珍贵的中国家具为出发点，以家具功能分类为主线，以木材和家具制造中的拼接方法为副线，在探讨家具功能之余，更试图揭示不同类型的家具与时代和地域背景之间的不可分离、千丝万缕的关系。作为英国的中国家具专家，克雷格·克鲁纳斯对中国家具的审视和研究为我们提供了新的角度，其从文学作品和版画中寻求线索、旁征博引，也使《英国维多利亚阿伯特博物馆藏中国家具》更富有阅读的趣味性。此外，数十幅维博所藏中国家具的精美彩图，也使我们得以领略流失海外的家具珍品的原貌。《英国维多利亚阿伯特博物馆藏中国家具》适宜于中国家具收藏者、爱好者和研究人士阅读。

《人类使用说明书:吃》内容简介：当我们行使人类的某些本能时，我们会碰到如下一些事物：各种各样的庸见、悖论、错误、幽默、矛盾、假正经。我们很多习以为常的普通行为都包含着一些无意义的意义，却常被我们忽略。这本关于吃的伪说明书以反讽、挖苦、搞笑的不正经腔调，以图示说明书的形式调侃和诠释正经的行为――吃。在调侃和诠释的背后，是一种严肃的文化批评和哲理思考。《人类使用说明书:吃》文字的插科打诨与严谨拘束的图示相映成趣。

第二次世界大战期间，美国年轻战士说，他们是“为了保卫喝可口可乐的权利而战”。本书作者也认为，纵观历史长河，在众多改变人类饮食习惯的方法当中，数战争最具效力。这本书将告诉你，饮食不仅是关乎人类生死存亡的大事，也是人类文化史中的重要一环。饮食不仅仅与政治、经济、战争有着密切的联系，甚至对人类思想形态的形成造成了重大影响。在作者风趣的论述中，你将重新认识人类饮食的发展历程。

物、財產、流通；物象、語詞、時間。物包圍著現代社會。物與人不再是簡單的使用關係。物有自己的獨立性。物對人起著宰製作用。物有傳記，有興衰，有獨特的歷史敘事。物的規模、物的性質、物與人的關係，是消費社會的重要標誌。物的新語義是本書所討論的主題。 本書是第一本物質文化研究的經典讀本。

The meaning that people attribute to things necessarily derives from human transactions and motivations, particularly from how those things are used and circulated. The contributors to this volume examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past. Focusing on culturally defined aspects of exchange and socially regulated processes of circulation, the essays illuminate the ways in which people find value in things and things give value to social relations. By looking at things as if they lead social lives, the authors provide a new way to understand how value is externalized and sought after. They discuss a wide range of goods - from oriental carpets to human relics - to reveal both that the underlying logic of everyday economic life is not so far removed from that which explains the circulation of exotica, and that the distinction between contemporary economies and simpler, more distant ones is less obvious than has been thought. As the editor argues in his introduction, beneath the seeming infinitude of human wants, and the apparent multiplicity of material forms, there in fact lie complex, but specific, social and political mechanisms that regulate taste, trade, and desire. Containing contributions from American and British social anthropologists and historians, the volume bridges the disciplines of social history, cultural anthropology, and economics, and marks a major step in our understanding of the cultural basis of economic life and the sociology of culture. It will appeal to anthropologists, social historians, economists. archaeologists, and historians of art.

The meaning of things is a study of the significance of material possessions in contemporary urban life, and of the ways people carve meaning out of their domestic environment. Drawing on a survey of eighty families in Chicago who were interviewed on the subject of their feelings about common household objects, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton provide a unique perspective on materialism, American culture, and the self. They begin by reviewing what social scientists and philosophers have said about the transactions between people and things. In the model of 'personhood' that the authors develop, goal-directed action and the cultivation of meaning through signs assume central importance. They then relate theoretical issues to the results of their survey. An important finding is the distinction between objects valued for action and those valued for contemplation. The authors compare families who have warm emotional attachments to their homes with those in which a common set of positive meanings is lacking, and interpret the different patterns of involvement. They then trace the cultivation of meaning in case studies of four families. Finally, the authors address what they describe as the current crisis of environmental and material exploitation, and suggest that human capacities for the creation and redirection of meaning offer the only hope for survival. A wide range of scholars - urban and family sociologists, clinical, developmental and environmental psychologists, cultural anthropologists and philosophers, and many general readers - will find this book stimulating and compelling.

When it was first released in 1962, "The Shape of Time" presented a radically new approach to the study of art history. Drawing upon new insights in fields such as anthropology and linguistics, George Kubler replaced the notion of style as the basis for histories of art with the concept of historical sequence and continuous change across time. Kubler's classic work is now made available in a freshly designed edition.

Exotic Commodities is the first book to chart the consumption and spread of foreign goods in China from the mid-nineteenth century to the advent of communism in 1949. Richly illustrated and revealing, this volume recounts how exotic commodities were acquired and adapted in a country commonly believed to have remained "hostile toward alien things" during the industrial era. China was not immune to global trends that prized the modern goods of "civilized" nations. Foreign imports were enthusiastically embraced by both the upper and lower classes and rapidly woven into the fabric of everyday life, often in inventive ways. Scarves, skirts, blouses, and corsets were combined with traditional garments to create strikingly original fashions. Industrially produced rice, sugar, wheat, and canned food revolutionized local cuisine, and mass produced mirrors were hung on doorframes to ward off malignant spirits. Frank Dikötter argues that ordinary people were the least inhibited in acquiring these products and therefore the most instrumental in changing the material culture of China. Landscape paintings, door leaves, and calligraphy scrolls were happily mixed with kitschy oil paintings and modern advertisements. Old and new interacted in ways that might have seemed incongruous to outsiders but were perfectly harmonious to local people. This pragmatic attitude would eventually lead to China's own mass production and export of cheap, modern goods, which today can be found all over the world. The nature of this history raises the question, which Dikötter pursues in his conclusion: If the key to surviving in a fast-changing world is the ability to innovate, could China be more in tune with modernity than Europe?

本书对宋代茶艺如采茶习俗、生产过程、保藏方法、点茶程序、分茶和斗茶技艺、茶具形制和系列等做了历史比较，对宋代贡茶和赐茶的政治意蕴、茶与宋代社会生活、茶与佛教、茶与中外文化交流、宋人茶观念、宋代茶书、茶与宋代诗词书画等都进行了细致的考辨和剖析。

"Shows how the intelligent analysis of the history of a single commodity can be used to pry open the history of an entire world of social relationships and human behavior."--"The New York Review of Books."

本书通过对汉代的器物，如熏炉、钱树、树灯、阳遂、铜镜、玉璧、武器、铜鼎等及其图像的讨论，带领读者从图像的背后了解汉代人们的信仰的根源。通过对这些细节的穷追，帮助读者更好地理解那些文献失载的当时人们的精神生活的深层内涵。

近十幾年來，考古文物的發掘與研究，擴充了歷史研究的內容，墓葬中出土的器物、壁畫，不僅成為美術館的珍藏，更因為中國人「事死如生」的信仰與習慣，讓我們清楚認識了古人生活的具體情況。 本書共八章，主要探討先秦至隋唐的兩個方面：一是日常生活圖景，二是戰爭形態與武器。作者楊泓教授把出土文物作為文化生活史的具體新材料，結合歷史文獻，展示出古人日常生活的圖像。書中討論古代家具的使用，便將考古資料放回到歷史上建築空間的變化與禮制習俗的持續來探討；討論古代戰爭使用戰車與兵器的情況，也展現出古人在戰場上的廝殺實景。全書論據實，立論審慎，作者細緻的分析與探討， 讓我們理解生活習俗的改變是由於不同歷史因素的相互影響，甚至制約，才會產生或急或緩的變遷。

本书以咖喱为引线，讲述了印度的美食、文化与历史，帮你从一个有趣的侧面了解印度——这个古老、庞杂、有趣，有点混乱，曾遭遇不幸的地方。内容严谨，余味悠长。多少沧桑，尽在平凡的酱料之中。 辛辣的食物在人们食谱中所占的比例呈逐年上升趋势…… 咖喱这种味道浓烈、充满异域风情的调味品，更是受到全球饕客的追捧。 想知道辛辣为何如此吸引人，不能不去了解其历史。 本书并非严肃的学术著作，既可作案头文牍，又可作饭后消闲。 富含有关咖喱的历史、传闻和菜谱。 无论是否喜爱这种酱料，你总能在其中尝到不少滋味。

本书探讨欧洲学界对礼物的阐释历史，关注的时间范畴是17世纪中叶至20世纪早期。传统的欧洲社会流行礼物互赠，对这一现象的研究在19世纪社会理论的话语中消失了，不料到了20世纪，却成了人类学、社会学、历史学、哲学和文学研究中的重要主题。现代人类学家在大洋洲、太平洋西北岸发现了礼物交换的现象，同时将这种观念带回欧洲社会；马塞尔·莫斯查阅了一些国家的古文献，融汇自己的见解，在1925年发表了《论礼物》。该书也是以下讨论的起点。《礼物的回归》阐释了欧洲思想史如何可能从全球语境中获取新的意义。

本书收入了十五篇文章，讨论了自商周以迄宋元的青铜、钢铁、金银、陶瓷、石刻、漆画等类古文物的一些具体问题。而它们或多或少都和东西文化交流有点关连。笔者研究的出发点本是探讨我国出土文物的性质，但有时被其中所饮食的外来因素所吸引，而随着若干诱人的细节，追踪到一片陌生的天地中去。。。

《佛教对中国物质文化的影响》是美国斯坦福大学宗教研究系教授柯嘉豪的一本重要学术著作，在西方中国宗教研究领域具有相当重要的意义。此书详细分析了佛教对中国物质文化的影响，包括对中国建筑、衣着、家具以及饮食的贡献。在此书之前，西方学者撰写中国通史时，除了提到佛教在思想、信仰以及仪式等方面的激荡外，很少强调佛教曾影响中国的物质文化；同时，也很少留意佛教的流传与物质文化间的关系。而对于中国读者来说，从一个较宏观的角度来讨论佛教对中国物质文化的影响，促使其思索宗教物品在其信仰与生活中所扮演的角色，仍具有新颖的启发意义。

《事物的起源(简明人类文化史)》是作者利普斯所写的一本关于文化 人类学的普及性著作，自出版后，已被译成多种文字，风行亚、欧、北美 诸洲，在人类学著作中，享有盛名。全书征引大量民族志和考古学材料， 探索各种生产活动、日用器具、社会制度和习俗的起源，内容涉及远古人 类物质文化和精神文化诸多方面，堪称一部简明的人类文化史。 作者目光所探，遍及世界每个角落，他公正地指出，世界各民族对人 类文化都作过贡献；他通过对原始民族的一些美德的探索与分析，对“现 代文明”弊病予以解读和透析，所得结论不乏警醒而富于情怀；《事物的 起源(简明人类文化史)》摒除一般人类学著作冗长的说教和争辩，搜集丰 富的材料，依照各个问题的历史发展顺序，分别叙述，结构谨严，脉络清 晰；作者长于写作，将含蓄而深奥的人类学观点，娓娓道来，平易畅晓， 风趣幽默。