front cover of Yew
Yew
Fred Hageneder
Reaktion Books, 2013
A comprehensive and richly illustrated history, Yew will appeal to botanists and other readers interested in the history and symbolism of the natural world, now in paperback.

The yew is the oldest and most common tree in the world, but it is a plant of puzzling contradictions: it is a conifer with juicy scarlet berries, but no cones; deer can feast on its poisonous foliage, but it is lethal to farm animals, and it thrives where other plants cannot because of its extraordinarily low rate of photosynthesis. Exploring this paradoxical plant in Yew, Fred Hageneder surveys its position in religious and cultural history, its role in the creation of the British Empire, and its place in modern medicine.
 
Hageneder explains the way the yew is able to renew itself from the inside by producing interior roots and how early humans, fascinated with its regenerative powers, began to associate the tree with concepts of life and death, the afterlife, and eternity. As such, it can be found at the sacred sites of Native Americans, Buddhists, and Shinto shrines in Japan, and it has become a living symbol of the resurrection for the Christian faith. He describes how churchyards saved many yews during the Middle Ages when the trees were used for the mass production of the longbow, which laid the foundation for the British Empire. Finally, he discusses the latest scientific discoveries about the yew, including its use in cancer treatments.
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Yoghurt
A Global History
June Hersh
Reaktion Books, 2021
Yoghurt: A Global History is a fascinating look at the rich history of yoghurt, from its earliest awakenings in Neolithic times to the modern-day culinary phenomenon it has become. The book delves into its nutritious properties, analyzes worldwide consumption, and explores the new developments in yoghurts, including non-dairy varieties, on-the-go options, and its impact in China, Europe, and North America. Highlighting scientific studies and offering practical guidance, June Hersh helps us better understand the plethora of yoghurt products available. She also provides step by step instructions on how to make foolproof homemade yoghurt, as well as mouthwatering international recipes.
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Yosemite
Kate Nearpass Ogden
Reaktion Books, 2015
In 1851 a small militia trekked through California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains and discovered a site so spectacular that, over the succeeding century and a half, millions of others would follow to gaze upon its splendor: Yosemite. Publishing in time for the 125th anniversary of Yosemite National Park, Kate Nearpass Ogden’s Yosemite offers a comprehensive look at both the scientific and cultural history of this remarkable place, exploring everything from its geological origins to the political will it took to preserve it.
           
Known for its unusual and dramatic rock formations, breathtaking vistas, and treasure trove of waterfalls, Yosemite receives nearly four million visitors a year. Scanning over these crowds, Ogden soon leaves them to walk through Yosemite’s history, back to its original name, “Ahwahnee”—given by its Miwok inhabitants—and the tragic irony behind what we call it now, which early Anglo-American visitors mistook as the Miwok appellation, but which some scholars now suggest in fact means “there are killers among them.” Visiting with famed stewards such as John Muir, and lesser-known ones such as James Mason Hutchings and Galen Rowell, she recounts the valley’s discovery by westerners, exploration, exploitation, and its eventual preservation as one of the first National Parks. Ogden also looks at the many artworks it has inspired and the larger hold it has had on the imagination and our dreams of the unspoiled American west.

Rich in detail and beautifully illustrated with everything from landscape photography to paintings inspired by its beauties, this book is a must read for anyone who has ever stepped into this incomparable valley—or anyone who has wanted to.   
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Yukio Mishima
Damian Flanagan
Reaktion Books, 2014
The most internationally acclaimed Japanese author of the twentieth century, Yukio Mishima (1925–70) was a prime candidate for the Nobel Prize. But the prolific author shocked the world in 1970 when he attempted a coup d’état that ended in his suicide by ritual disembowelment. In this radically new analysis of Mishima’s extraordinary life, Damian Flanagan deviates from the stereotypical depiction of a right-wing nationalist and aesthete, presenting the author instead as a man in thrall to the modern world while also plagued by hidden neuroses and childhood trauma that pushed him toward his explosive final act.
           
Flanagan argues that Mishima was a man obsessed with the concepts of time and “emperor,” and reveals how these were at the heart of his literature and life. Untangling the distortions in the writer’s memoirs, Flanagan traces the evolution of Mishima’s attempts to master and transform his sexuality and artistic persona. While often perceived as a solitary protest figure, Mishima, Flanagan shows, was very much in tune with postwar culture—he took up bodybuilding and became a model and actor in the 1950s, adopted the themes of contemporary political scandals in his work, courted English translators, and became influenced by the student protests and hippie subculture of the late 1960s. A groundbreaking reevaluation of the author, this succinct biography paints a revealing portrait of Mishima’s life and work.
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Yves Klein
Nuit Banai
Reaktion Books, 2014
Denounced as a charlatan and fêted as a mystic, French artist Yves Klein (1928–62) scandalized the art world with his enthusiastic embrace of postwar mass culture and his exploitation of controversial publicity tactics. Today, we know Yves Klein not only as one of the most radical artists of the postwar period, but also as an iconic role model for contemporary practices—he reinvented abstract painting, conceived new horizons for performance art, and was a trailblazer in the realm of land, body, and conceptual art. In this new critical biography, Nuit Banai examines the relationship between Klein’s brief life and his wide repertoire of artistic practices.
 
While surveying the artist’s life, Banai establishes that Klein’s brilliance was, above all, performative, revealing that he created and inhabited myriad public identities: bourgeois, judo expert, painter, avant-garde artist, collaborator, politician, fascist, and showman, among others. With each persona, Banai shows, Klein invented new ways to communicate his paradoxical message of spiritual enlightenment and Dada iconoclasm to a rapt and unsuspecting audience. Illuminating the many facets of Klein’s influential artistic career, Yves Klein is an invaluable introduction to the inventor of the inimitable International Klein Blue.
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