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Bread
Series: Object Lessons
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See more"Explores bread as both everyday object and as an object that has been invested throughout history with symbolic power and an astonishing variety of social, cultural and figural meanings"--
Explores bread as both everyday object and as an object that has been invested throughout history with symbolic power and an astonishing variety of social, cultural and figural meanings.
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Description
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Bread is an object that is always in the process of becoming something else: flour to grain, grain to dough, dough to loaf, loaf to crumb. Bread is also often a figure or vehicle of social cohesion: from the homely image of βbreaking bread togetherβ to the mysteries of the Eucharist. But bread also commonly figures in social conflict β sometimes literally, in the βbread riotsβ that punctuate European history, and sometimes figuratively, in the ways bread operates as ethnic, religious, or class signifier.
Drawing on a wide range of sources, from the scriptures to modern pop culture, Bread tells the story of how this ancient and everyday object serves as a symbol for both social communion and social exclusion.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
Series: Object Lessons
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Bicycle
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. These days the bicycle often appears as an interloper in a world constructed for cars. An almost miraculous 19th-century contraption, the bicycle promises to transform our lives and the world we live in, yet its time seems always yet-to-come or long-gone-by. Bicycle by...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Rust
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Itβs happening all the time, all around us. We cover it up. We ignore it. Rust takes on the many meanings of this oxidised substance, showing how technology bleeds into biology and ecology. Jean-Michel RabatΓ© combines art, science, and autobiography to share his...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Bookshelf
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Every shelf is different, and every bookshelf tells a different story. One bookshelf can creak with character in a bohemian coffee shop, while another can groan with gravitas in the Library of Congress. Bookshelf by writer and historian Lydia Pyne explores these differences...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Burger
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The burger, long the All-American meal, is undergoing an identity crisis. From its shifting place in popular culture to efforts by investors such as Bill Gates to create the non-animal burger that can feed the world, the burgerβs identity has become as malleable...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Cigarette Lighter
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Smokers, survivalists, teenagers, collectors⦠The cigarette lighter is a charged, complex, yet often entirely disposable object that moves across these various groups of people, acquiring and emitting different meanings while always supplying its primary function, that of ignition. While the lighter may seem...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Earth
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. In Earth, a planetary scientist and a literary humanist explore what happens when we think of the Earth as an object viewable from space. As a βblue marble,β βa blue pale dot,β or, as Chaucer described it, βthis litel spot of erthe,β the...Paperback$2199Elsewhere:$2499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Egg
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This book is about a strange objectβstrange in part because it is something that we all have been, and that many of us eat. Nicole Walker's Egg relishes in sharp juxtapositions of seemingly fanciful or repellent topics, so that reproductive science and gustatory...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Eye Chart
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Desert nomads tested their vision by distinguishing a pair of stars. But we have since created more disquieting ways to test the strength of the eyes. Reading the eye chart is an exercise in failure, since it only gets interesting when you cannot...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
High Heel
Best Fifteen Books of March 2019, Refinery29Best Nonfiction Books of 2019, Paste Magazine Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Fetishized, demonized, celebrated, and outlawed, the high heel is central to the iconography of modern womanhood. But are high heels good? Are they feminist? What does it mean for a...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Hood
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. We all wear hoods: the Grim Reaper, Red Riding Hood, torturers, executioners and the executed, athletes, labourers, anarchists, rappers, babies in onesies, and anyone whoβs ever grabbed a hoodie on a chilly day. Alison Kinneyβs Hood explores the material and symbolic vibrancy of...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Jet Lag
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Jet lag is a momentary condition resulting from the human body and its inner clock being pitched against the time-leaping effects of modern aviation. But more than that, it is a situation that explains time, technology, and the human body. Jet lag epitomises...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Mushroom
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. They are the things we step on without noticing and the largest organisms on Earth. They are symbols of inexplicable growth and excruciating misery. They are grouped with plants, but they behave more like animals. In their inscrutability, mushrooms are wondrous organisms. The...Paperback$2199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
The book by Scott Cutler Shershow offers a beautifully written exploration of bread not just as a basic food item, but as a concept rich with political and philosophical significance. It delves into the idea of hospitality through the act of breaking bread and explores the complexities beyond mere consumption. Shershow presents bread as a miraculous element intrinsically linked to the human experience, akin to how critical theorists view language.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781501307447
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 28 July 2016
Country: United States
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic USA
Illustration: 8 b/w illustrations
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 14.0mm
Width: 120.0mm
Height: 164.0mm
Weight: 160g
Pages: 168
About the Author
Scott Cutler Shershow is Professor of English at University of California, Davis, USA. He is the author of five books, including Deconstructing Dignity: A Critique of the Right-to-Die Debate (2014).
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