Offers a look at the debates and ideas involved in the aesthetics of painting. This book introduces ideas in the aesthetics of painting. It looks at how and why pictorial representation can be distinguished from other forms of representation; and the relationship between the painted surface and the depicted subject.

The flexibility of critical realism is illustrated in the range of topics discussed - ranging from quantum mechanics to cyberspace, to literary theory, nature, smoking, the future of Marx, the unconscious and, of course, postmodernism and the future of theory itself.

<b>Bestselling author A. C. Grayling explains how--fueled by original and unorthodox thinking, war, and technological invention--the seventeenth century became the crucible of modernity.</b>

'If you're looking for a good spy thriller, I definitely recommend this' Daily Express The thrilling real-life story of a double agent in the Second World War