The Swastika: Constructing the Symbol (Material Cultures) [Hardcover]

Malcolm Quinn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 041510095X | ISBN-13: 978-0415100953 | Publication Date: December 5, 1994 | Edition: First

Despite the enormous amount of material on the subject of Nazism, there has been no substantial work on its emblem, the swastika. This original and controversial contribution examines the role that the swastika played in the construction of the Aryan myth in the nineteenth century, and its use in Nazi ideology as a symbol of party, nation and race, treating it as symbolic phenomenon in a cultural context. By identifying the swastika as a boundary or liminal image, Malcolm Quinn allies visual anaysis to issues of material culture and history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

For too long, the archeology of knowledge about the swastika has been confined to books and part-works which belong roughly mid-way between Nazi nostolgia and the occult. Malcolm Quinn's well-argued study helps to relocate the swastika within a variety of fresh contexts: the parallel histories of archeology, colonization and design; polemics about the ways in which symbols work; analysis of the rhetoric of the image. The point, as he says, is `to break the chain of reference from image to image, the means by which the symbol is constructed.' So this book is about symbolism, rather than Nazism, and it represents an important and even courageous contribution to the study of visual culture since the late nineteenth century.
–Christopher Frayling, Professor of Cultural History, Royal College of Art

About the Author

Malcom Quinn is Lecturer in Art and Design History at Wimbledon School of Art.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; First edition (December 5, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 041510095X
• ISBN-13: 978-0415100953
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,830,141 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A history of visibility, July 2, 2000

By 

hilary baxter (london United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Swastika: Constructing the Symbol (Material Cultures) (Hardcover)

This book is 'a history of visibility'; it shows how the swastika became the key device in the Nazi colonisation of the visual field. It does not deal with what the swastika 'means' but rather with how the contradictory messages of racist ideology were given form in the swastika as symbol or 'brand'. This book was described by Stephen Heller, in Design Issues (Autumn 1995) as `one of the most important books about design history and design's role in political and social persuasion that has been published to date'. Heller is the author of The Swastika Symbol Beyond Recognition (Allworth Press 2000).