DOM publishers Boris Iofan. Architect behind the Palace of the Soviets Kostyuk Maria

Alexey Shchusev (1873-1949) was one of the most celebrated architects of the Soviet Union, famous for Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow. Not only a gifted designer of many prominent buildings, his career was quite unique and closely intertwined with the turbulent course of Russian and Soviet history. He was one of the very few architects who managed to rise to the top of the architectural hierarchy under the tsars and then to repeat this success under Soviet rule. Already before the Revolution of 1917, Shchusev was an acclaimed Revivalist architect, wellknown for his church designs and Moscow's Kazan Station. In the 1920s, he became a renowned Constructivist. Following the official renunciation of Avant-Garde architecture ordered by Stalin, Shchusev swiftly became an advocate of Socialist Classicism, designing many projects in the dictator's favoured Empire Style in order to satisfy the Stalinist state's needs for monumental representation

This monograph on the work of the Russian architect Galina Balashova presents a unique collection of designs for Soviet cosmonautics. These include plans and engineering drawings for Soyuz capsules and the space stations Salyut and Mir. Balashova acted as a consultant to the Buran programme, the Soviet counterpart to the American Space Shuttle

A luminous and bewitching debut novel that is perfect for fans of Angela Carter. Set in Victorian London, it follows the fortunes of Eve, the Lion-Faced Girl and Abel, the Flayed Man. A magical realism delight • Before Eve is born, her mother goes to the circus. She buys a penny twist of coloured sugar and settles down to watch the heart-stopping main attraction: a lion, billed as a monster from the savage heart of Africa, forged in the heat of a merciless sun. Mama swears she hears the lion sigh, just before it leaps…and when Eve is born, the story goes, she didn’t cry – she meowed and licked her paws • When Abel is pulled from the stinking Thames, the mudlarks are sure he is long dead. As they search his pockets to divvy up the treasure, his eyes crack open and he coughs up a stream of black water

At the heart of the Sultan's vast empire stands the mysterious Palace of Dreams. Inside, the dreams of every citizen are collected, sorted and interpreted in order to identify the 'master-dreams' that will provide the clues to the Empire's destiny and that of its Monarch. An entire nation's consciousness is thus meticulously laid bare and at the mercy of its government • The Palace of Dreams is Kadare's macabre vision of tyranny and oppression, and was banned upon publication in Albania in 1981

The true story of the White Queen and more, this is a thrilling history of the extraordinary noblewomen who lived through the Wars of the Roses • The events of the Wars of the Roses are usually described in terms of the men involved: Richard Duke of York, Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII. But these years were also packed with women's drama and - in the tales of conflicted maternity and monstrous births - alive with female energy • In this completely original book, Sarah Gristwood sheds light on a neglected dimension of English history: the impact of Tudor women on the Wars of the Roses. She examines, among others, Cecily Neville, who was deprived of being queen when her husband died at the Battle of Wakefield; Elizabeth Woodville, the commoner who married Edward IV in secret; Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, whose love and ambition for her son knew no bounds

In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire’s heralded ‘philosopher-king’, the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of ‘outdated’ music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age • Behind the pomp and flash, Prussia's Frederick the Great was a tormented man, son of an abusive king who forced him to watch as his best friend (probably his lover) was beheaded. In what may have been one of history's crueler practical jokes, Frederick challenged ‘old Bach’ to a musical duel, asking him to improvise a six-part fugue based on an impossibly intricate theme (possibly devised for him by Bach's own son) • Bach left the court fuming, but in a fever of composition, he used the coded, alchemical language of counterpoint to write ‘A Musical Offering’ in response

In 1724, Captain Charles Johnson published A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. In it, he created the modern image of the cut-throats who sailed under the Jolly Roger and gave mythical status to Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Bartholomew Roberts, 'Calico' Jack Rackham, Mary Read and Anne Bonny • Pirates looks at the reality behind these legends and reveals a world often as gripping as anything acted out by Errol Flynn. It portrays the pirates, their weapons, their ships, their victims and their hideouts, including the 'pirate capital city Port Royal on Jamaica, the 'wickedest city in the world'

Майкл Бут жил среди скандинавов более десяти лет, и был озадачен многими странными парадоксами и чертами характера, и в равной степени ошеломлен безоговорочным энтузиазмом ко всему скандинавскому • Он покидает свой дом в Дании и отправляется в путешествие по всем пяти северным странам, чтобы узнать, кто такие эти любопытные племена, секреты их успеха и, что самое интригующее, что они думают друг о друге. Результатом этого путешествия стала книга "Почти идеальные люди. Миф о скандинавской утопии" • Книга на английском языке • The Danes are the happiest people in the world, and pay the highest taxes • 'Neutral' Sweden is one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world • Finns have the largest per capita gun ownership after the US and Yemen • 54 per cent of Icelanders believe in elves

The redevelopment of historical centres became an important policy field in the era of European dictatorships following the First World War. At that time historical centres were regarded as shabby and as tarnishing the desired image of a magnificent new city, of a showcase of the dictatorship. This led to the widespread demolition of older buildings. Historical streets and squares disappeared and were replaced by new apartments and workplaces for the loyal middle classes, by car-friendly roads and ostentatious new buildings. Nevertheless, the redevelopment of historical centres did not exclusively mean the eradication of the ‘old town’. The aim of the dictatorship in many cases was also the preservation, and often the cultic display, of historical testimonials to past greatness

The Soviet avant-garde architecture of the 1920s to the mid-1930s has increasingly been attracting attention from researchers worldwide. Yet, in spite of this, entire regions remain unstudied. One of these is the south of Russia. Based on extensive research, this guidebook aims to correct the omission. It explores Russia's South and North Caucasus federal districts: Astrakhanskaya, Volgogradskaya, and Rostovskaya regions, Krasnodarsky kray, Crimea, Kalmykiya, Mineralnye Vody, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkariya, Karachaevo-Cherkesiya, Severnaya Osetiya, and Chechnya. During the Second World War, the south of Russia was the scene of fighting and mass destruction. Post-war reconstruction saw many buildings redesigned in the neoclassical style and the loss of an entire stratum of avant-garde structures

The ancient city of Asmara is the capital of Eritrea and it's largest settlement. Its beautiful architecture was rediscovered by outsiders in the early 1990s. In this book, the authors offer an original analysis of the colonial city, providing a history not only of the physical and visible urban reality, but also of a second, invisible city as it exists in the imagination. The colonial city becomes a fantastical set of cities where each one reflects the others as if in a kaleidoscope. This ambitious book breaks new ground, and moves us a little further along in the attempt to read Asmara into contemporary theory. This book brings together scholars from a multiplicity of disciplines who have shown the ways in which colonial and postcolonial criticism has served as a platform for new, diversified readings of Asmara, which compile cultural and social history, critical and political theory, anthropological fieldwork, visual culture studies, literary and cinematic analysis, gender studies, diaspora and urban studies

The growing variety of materials available for interior applications makes the process of selecting and sampling them ever more complex and time consuming. This manual from the Construction and Design series provides concise information on the subject alongside a wealth of inspiration. It offers an overview of materials suited to particular components of a building - including walls, ceiling, and floors and objects. Both traditional and new materials are described in a knowledgeable and practical manner. It is not only a material itself that determines the appearance of a surface, but also the design and arrangement of the joins. After a material's surface, the chosen laying pattern is the next key aspect that influences its spatial effect. The book, therefore, includes a wide range of different laying patterns