Utilizing a variety of ancient sources, including cuneiform texts, images and archaeological finds, Luxury and Legitimation explores how the collecting of luxury objects contributed to the formation of royal identity in one of the world's oldest civilizations, ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Allison Thomason makes a significant and timely contribution to the subjects of collecting and material culture studies by bringing a new understanding to the political, cultural and social institutions of an important pre-Classical, non-Western civilization.

Despite being vastly different both socially and economically, art and fashion are increasingly converging to collaborate in mutually advantageous ways. This book discusses the mutual benefits of collaboration through analysis of successful case studies, including corporate art collections and museums, patronage and sponsorship initiatives, and art-based brand management in the fashion sector. It provides a categorization of the strategies that fashion firms employ when they join the art world and illustrates how art and fashion brands can interact strategically at different levels. This book will be a valuable resource to researchers, providing an enhanced understanding of the potential of artification for managing brands and products.

Examine luxury branding on a global scale, with more than fifty cutting edge contributions from the foremost thought leaders in luxury management and marketing. The Management of Luxury, second edition, presents a unique snapshot of best practice insights into the increasing challenges faced in luxury business, with contributions shared by more than fifty global leaders on luxury management. The highly renowned editors draw these together into one essential handbook, ranging from luxury brand strategy, luxury consumer behaviour and market positioning, through to management succession, heritage, counterfeiting and competing effectively as a luxury SME. Fully updated in its second edition, The Management of Luxury explores the newly evolving direction of Asian market trends and how to integrate digitalization into sales and product strategies. Both are crucial for competitive advantage in the luxury market, featured alongside iconic case studies such as Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Leica. The book's value is not only in streamlining management processes and return on investment; but equally for those who marvel at an industry unlike any other, striving to trust both in the conventional and innovate new paths towards the extraordinary. Highly influential, applicable and enlightening, it is a vital addition to every luxury business manager's collection.

Far from being a Judeo-Christian invention, apocalyptic thought had its roots in the ancient Near East and was expressed in its art.

The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704–681 BC), Part 1 (Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 3/1) provides reliable, up-to-date editions of thirty-eight historical inscriptions of Sennacherib. The texts edited in RINAP 3/1, which comprise approximately a sixth of the Sennacherib known corpus of inscriptions, were inscribed on clay cylinders, clay prisms, stone tablets, and stone steles from Nineveh; describe his many victories on the battlefield; and record numerous construction projects at Nineveh, including the city’s walls and the “Palace Without a Rival.” Each text edition (with its English translation) is supplied with a brief introduction containing general information, a catalogue containing basic information about all exemplars, a commentary containing further technical information and notes, and a comprehensive bibliography. RINAP 3/1 also includes: (1) a general introduction to the reign of Sennacherib, his military campaigns, his building activities at Nineveh, the corpus of inscriptions, previous studies, and dating and chronology; (2) translations of the relevant passages of several Mesopotamian chronicles and kinglists; (3) several photographs of objects inscribed with texts of Sennacherib; (4) indices of museum and excavation numbers and selected publications; and (5) indices of proper names (Personal Names; Geographic, Ethnic, and Tribal Names; Divine, Planet, and Star Names; Gate, Palace, Temple, and Wall Names; and Object Names). The RINAP Project is under the direction of G. Frame (University of Pennsylvania) and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Matt Erlin considers books and the culture around books during this period, focusing specifically on Germany where literature, and the fine arts in general, were the subject of soul-searching debates over the legitimacy of luxury.

The Ottoman Empire was the only great European Muslim power and was at one time the most serious threat to European Christendom. Yet, by the turn of the nineteenth century, it was a crumbling power that, paradoxically, retained a strong military force. The Well-Protected Domains examines this anomaly, showing how the late Ottoman state grappled with the challenges of the modernity then changing the world. Selim Deringil traces the Ottoman state's pursuit of egitimation in many spheres of public life: state ceremonial, the iconography of buildings, the honours system, the language of the chancery, the proto- nationalist reformulation of Islamic legal practices, the efforts to inculcate the idea of 'Ottoman citizenry' through an expanded education system and the efforts of the Ottoman elite to present a 'civilized' image abroad. Based on unexplored sources in the Ottoman archives, The Well-Protected Domains brings to life the Hamidian period and provides readers with a unique view of the workings of the late Ottoman Empire.

"Sherman's insightful ethnography sheds light on the interactional dimension of symbolic boundaries and class relations as they are lived by luxury hotel clients and the workers who serve them. We learn how both groups perform class through emotion work and deepen our understanding of the role played by "niceness" in constituting equality and reversing hierarchies. As such, Class Acts is a signal contribution to a growing literature on the place of the self concept in class boundaries. It will gain a significant place in a body of work that broadens our understanding of class by moving beyond structural determinants and taking into consideration the performative, emotional, cognitive, and expressive dimensions of inequality."--Michele Lamont, author of The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration "Eye-opening, amusing, and appalling, Rachel Sherman's Class Acts explains how class inequality is normalized in the refined atmosphere of luxury hotels. This beautifully observed and engagingly written ethnography describes what kinds of deference and personal recognition money can buy. Moreover, it shows how workers who provide luxury service avoid seeing themselves as subordinate and how those whose whims are catered to are made comfortable with their privilege. Class Acts is a sobering and timely account of the legitimation of extreme inequality in a culture that prizes egalitarianism."--Robin Leidner, University of Pennsylvania "Rachel Sherman provides a penetrating and engrossing study of workers and guests in luxury hotels. Do workers resent the guests? Do guests disdain the workers? Sherman argues neither is true-and explains why."--Julia Wrigley, author of Other People's Children

David Beetham's book explores the legitimation of power both as an issue in political and social science theory and in relation to the legitimacy of contemporary political systems including its breakdown in revolution. 'An admirable text which is far reaching in its scope and extraordinary in the clarity with which it covers a wide range of material... One xan have nothing but the highest regard for this volume.' - David Held, Times Higher Education Supplement;'Beetham has produced a study bound to revolutionize sociological thinking and teaching... Seminal and profoundly original... Beetham's book should become the obligitory reading for every teacher and practitioner of social science.' - Zygmunt Bauman, Sociology