Craft and War

Name: Craft and War
Brand: Allen & Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand
SKU: 9781350345485
Price: 165.0 NZD
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Makers, Users, and Craft Practices since the 19th Century

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Brief Description

Examining the diverse ways in which craft has participated in wars from the mid-19th century to the present day, this book brings together a wealth of scholarship to redress an understudied area of modern craft history. Craft and War explores issues of fabrication, makers, objects, uses,... Read More

Format: Hardback

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Explores the relationship between craft and war, examining craft fabrication, practices, objects, makers and users in global contexts throughout conflicts since the mid-19th century.

Explores the relationship between craft and war, examining craft fabrication, practices, objects, makers and users in global contexts throughout conflicts since the mid-19th century.

Description

Examining the diverse ways in which craft has participated in wars from the mid-19th century to the present day, this book brings together a wealth of scholarship to redress an understudied area of modern craft history. Craft and War explores issues of fabrication, makers, objects, uses, and users throughout conflicts across the world to provide a critical understanding of the relationship between craft and contexts of war.

Chapters look at the impact of colonisation on making practices and acts of preserving cultural heritage in times of dislocation and migration. Authors provide insights into repurposing tools of oppression and the appropriation of material culture as a device of warfare, in addition to embroidery and tactics of resistance, and the role of craft and folk art in international feminist peace activism. Organised into four thematic sections, this book reveals how craft developed in different regions during and after armed conflicts, including research on trench art and objects, quilts and rugs commissioned in wartime, and ceramics and the art of commemoration. Craft and War also provides a breadth of analysis on crafting as a rehabilitative activity and traces government initiatives across different countries for postwar healing involving crafts.

This important contribution to modern craft history addresses multiple facets of a rich and complex subject to provide cross-national, cultural, and chronological comparisons of craft’s participation in situations of conflict and stages of war.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781350345485

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 11 June 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Bloomsbury Visual Arts

Illustration: 59 colour illus.

Contributors:

Edited by Heather Smith
Edited by Jennifer Way
Edited by Alida R. Jekabson

Audience: Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 26.0mm

Width: 162.0mm

Height: 236.0mm

Weight: 900g

Pages: 352

Collections

Arts & Culture Education & Reference History & Archaeology History & Military Military History Non-Fiction

About the Author

Jennifer Way is a scholar and educator in art history at the University of North Texas, USA. Her current research explores craft history and intersections of art with conflict, gender, race, caring, and healing, especially in U.S. and transnational settings from the 19th century to the present. She recently published chapters in Craft in Extremis: Survival and Creativity in Modern War and Genocide c. 1890-1950 (2026); Medical Care, Humanitarianism, and Intimacy in the Long Second World War, 1931-1953 (2025); Fallingwater: Living with and in Art (2025); Modernism, Art, Therapy (2024); and Boundaries: Transnational Exchanges through Art, Architecture, and Design from 1945 (2023).
Heather Smith has 30 years of experience working in art and history museums and art galleries in Canada. She organized numerous travelling exhibitions such as Quilting for a Cause: Red Cross Quilts for the Great War (2019); Vaughan Grayson an Artist in the Canadian Rockies (2006); Keepsakes of Conflict: Trench Art and Other Canadian War-Related Craft (2006); and Fred Strickland’s War Sketches (2002). In 2013, she won the publisher of the year award from the Saskatchewan Book Awards for Hansen Ross Pottery: Pioneering Fine Craft on the Canadian Prairies (2012).
Alida R. Jekabson is a PhD Candidate in the History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Her research explores histories of modern craft and consumer culture in the United States and occupied territories, exploring textiles and their role as mediators of value.