Ken Jacobson shows that the history of Orientalist photography begins weeks after the invention of photography itself. Jacobson is not an academic, but has conducted a great deal of scholarly research on the often obscure careers of photographers and the intertwined histories of the Levantine studios. He demonstrates that many of the past criticisms of Orientalist photography are based on ignorance either of chronology or technology.

The Middle East played a critical role in the development of photography as a new technology and an art form. Likewise, photography was instrumental in cultivating and maintaining Europe’s distinctively Orientalist vision of the Middle East. As new advances enhanced the versatility of the medium, nineteenth-century photographers were able to mass-produce images to incite and satisfy the demands of the region’s burgeoning tourist industry and the appetites of armchair travelers in Europe. In this way, the evolution of modern photography fueled an interest in visual contact with the rest of the world. Photography’s Orientalism offers the first in-depth cultural study of the works of European and non- European photographers active in the Middle East and India, focusing on the relationship between photographic, literary, and historical representations of this region and beyond. The essays explore the relationship between art and politics by considering the connection between the European presence there and aesthetic representations produced by traveling and resident photographers, thereby contributing to how the history of photography is understood.

Envisioning Islamic Art and Architecture: Essays in Honor of Renata Holod offers innovative analyses and interpretations of both familiar and previously unpublished objects and monuments, its essays adopting the broad range of methodological approaches stimulated by Holod's research and pedagogy.

Reconstructing Empress Eug?e's position as a private collector and a public patron of a broad range of media, this study is the first to examine Eug?e (1826-1920), whose patronage of the arts has been overlooked even by her many biographers. The empress's patronage and collecting is considered within the context of her political roles in the development of France's institutions and international relations. Empress Eug?e and the Arts: Politics and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century also examines representations of the empress, and the artistic transformation of a Hispanic woman into a leading figure in French politics. Based on extensive research at architectural sites and in archives, museums, and libraries throughout Europe, and in Britain and the United States, this book offers in-depth analysis of many works that have never before received scholarly attention - including reconstruction and analysis of Eug?e's apartment at the Tuileries. From her self-definition as empress through her collections, to her later days in exile in England, art was integral to Eug?e's social and political position.

Simon Goldhill offers a fascinating new perspective on the material culture of nineteenth-century Britain.

The first history of indigenous photography in the Middle East The birth of photography coincided with the expansion of European imperialism in the Middle East, and some of the medium's earliest images are Orientalist pictures taken by Europeans in such places as Cairo and Jerusalem—photographs that have long shaped and distorted the Western visual imagination of the region. But the Middle East had many of its own photographers, collectors, and patrons. In this book, Stephen Sheehi presents a groundbreaking new account of early photography in the Arab world. The Arab Imago concentrates primarily on studio portraits by Arab and Armenian photographers in the late Ottoman Empire. Examining previously known studios such as Abdullah Frères, Pascal Sébah, Garabed Krikorian, and Khalil Raad, the book also provides the first account of other pioneers such as Georges and Louis Saboungi, the Kova Brothers, Muhammad Sadiq Bey, and Ibrahim Rif'at Pasha—as well as the first detailed look at early photographs of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. In addition, the book explores indigenous photography manuals and albums, newspapers, scientific journals, and fiction. Featuring extensive previously unpublished images, The Arab Imago shows how native photography played an essential role in the creation of modern Arab societies in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon before the First World War. At the same time, the book overturns Eurocentric and Orientalist understandings of indigenous photography and challenges previous histories of the medium.