In the Kingdom of Shoes tells the story of the pioneering Bata Company, which created a fascinating company culture as it globalized industrial shoe production.

One of the world’s largest sellers of footwear, the Bata Company of Zlín, Moravia has a remarkable history that touches on crucial aspects of what made the world modern. In the twilight of the Habsburg Empire, the company Americanized its production model while also trying to Americanize its workforce. It promised a technocratic form of governance in the chaos of postwar Czechoslovakia, and during the Roaring Twenties, it became synonymous with rationalization across Europe and thus a flashpoint for a continent-wide debate. While other companies contracted in response to the Great Depression, Bata did the opposite, becoming the first shoe company to unlock the potential of globalization. As Bata expanded worldwide, it became an example of corporate national indifference, where company personnel were trained to be able to slip into and out of national identifications with ease. Such indifference, however, was seriously challenged by the geopolitical crisis of the 1930s, and by the cusp of the Second World War, Bata management had turned nationalist, even fascist. In the Kingdom of Shoes unravels the way the Bata project swept away tradition and enmeshed the lives of thousands of people around the world in the industrial production of shoes. Using a rich array of archival materials from two continents, the book answers how Bata’s rise to the world’s largest producer of shoes challenged the nation-state, democracy, and Americanization.

A detailed history of shoes features more than two thousand elaborate drawings of footwear from such periods as ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Byzantine empire, in a chronically arranged volume complemented by information on materials, styles, decorations, and fastenings.

In the Kingdom of Shoes tells the story of the pioneering Bata Company, which created a fascinating company culture as it globalized industrial shoe production.

45 siblings share their experiences as the brother and sister of someone with a disability.

Includes Simon & Schuster reading group guide.

White Shoes' is a collection of self-portraits taken in locations around New York that were central to the city's once pivotal - and now largely obscured and unacknowledged - involvement in the slave trade. Nona Faustine depicts herself at the sites of slave auctions, burial grounds, slave-owning farms, and the coastal locations where slave ships docked, posing nude apart from a pair of white high-heeled shoes. Documenting herself in places where history becomes tangible, Faustine acts as a conduit or receptor, in solidarity with people whose names and memories have been lost but are embedded in the land. Through quiet but defiant self-representation, Faustine responds to a history of depiction of Black people that is shaped by subjugation, phrenology, and pseudo-science. Her complex large-format images refer and respond to a range of sources including daguerrotypes of slaves and photographs commissioned by naturalists, while her nudity - expressive of fearless self-possession as well as vulnerability - subverts the legacy of Black and female nudes in Western art. Running throughout the images, the talismanic white shoes that give the series its name suggest the many adaptations to dominant White culture that were and are still demanded of people of colour. At once historical and speculative, White Shoes confronts the relationship between the visible and invisible, between what is displayed and what is kept from view. Includes newly commissioned texts by Pamela Sneed, Jessica Lanay, Jonathan Michael Square and Seph Rodney, together with an interview of the artist by Jessica Lanay

But all the kids are wearing them! Any child who has ever craved something out of reach will relate to this warm, refreshingly realistic story. Features an audio read-along. "I have dreams about those shoes. Black high-tops. Two white stripes." All Jeremy wants is a pair of those shoes, the ones everyone at school seems to be wearing. But Jeremy’s grandma tells him they don’t have room for "want," just "need," and what Jeremy needs are new boots for winter. When Jeremy’s shoes fall apart at school, and the guidance counselor gives him a hand-me-down pair, the boy is more determined than ever to have those shoes, even a thrift-shop pair that are much too small. But sore feet aren’t much fun, and Jeremy comes to realize that the things he has -- warm boots, a loving grandma, and the chance to help a friend -- are worth more than the things he wants.