At the core of this book is a collection of documents from the period 1912 – 74 relating to art and culture in Venezuela, very few of which have previously been available in English. These include staccato manifestos, interviews, newspaper articles, letters, essays, and extracts from longer scholarly texts. The value of such material is enormous for general reference, for comparative research, and for undergraduate courses. There is also a Spanish edition (Museum of Modern Art and Fundación Cisneros, 2009) with the same pagination, so the material could be useful in courses involving a component of language instruction.
These historical documents are framed by a number of contemporary essays written especially for this book. These range widely, covering history, politics, and identity as well as the history of art, architecture, and the urban environment. There is interesting material here, and it is certainly good to see so many Venezuelan scholars...
