Revolutionary Tides: The Art of the Political Poster 1914-1989 »

Jeffrey T. Schnapp is holder of the Rosina Pierotti Chair at Stanford University and Director of Stanford's Humanities Laboratory. He is the author of several books, including The Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante's Paradise (1986) and Staging Fascism: 18BL and the Theater of Masses for Masses (1996).

Public assemblies and multitudes in action are fundamental to our notion of political life. Through 120 posters-many never previously reproduced-the book examines the impact of large gatherings of people in politics and society concentrating on the turbulent years of the first half of the 20th century. The posters will be presented in a nearly year-long US exhibition, drawn from the massive collection of Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and augmented by works from the Wolfsonian Museum, Florida International University, and the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. The exhibition catalog, published in conjunction with the Cantor Arts Center, explores the decisive importance of large gatherings of people and its correlative, the mass medium of poster art, and considers the complex nature of the portrayal of political crowds in the modern period.Schnapp's text frames the featured works within a broader history of the images of the crowd in Western art. The essay aims to sharpen the reader's perspective by creating a synthetic understanding of how emerging principles of popular sovereignty in politics shaped new images and myths of a new, collective sense of our humanity.

Library Journal

The 20th-century political poster was a primary broadcast channel for governments, political parties, and radical movements. Designers developed bold symbols to seize the attention of urban dwellers distracted by competing images and sensations. Rather than limiting itself to one conflict, era, or nation, Revolutionary Tides-a catalog accompanying the exhibition of the same name by the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, the Hoover Institution, the Stanford Humanities Lab, and the Wolfsonian-Florida International University-explores the iconography of the poster across different countries, conflicts, and ideologies, including World War II-era United States, Nazi Germany, 1980s Poland, and postrevolutionary Iran in the 1970s. It's an illuminating approach by editor Schnapp (director, Stanford Humanities Lab), though it fails to consider how divergent cultures might differently interpret graphic symbols. The book analyzes, with the help of color and black-and-white illustrations and insightful footnotes, recurring motifs (e.g., abstractions based on masses of figures marching; citizens or revolutionary figures rendered as geometric forms; the human body as a powerful, charged symbol in the form of fists or outstretched hands); one especially interesting section discusses the use of quantitative data as graphic element. Recommended for art and political science collections.-Michael Dashkin, Qualcomm, San Diego Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.