An interest in culture and attention to the design of objects and environment are privileges and an expression of social and material security. Our publishing house’s focus is the overarching subjects and issues in our society; we seek to express these in the most effective way possible in words and images.

The last decade was largely defined by consumption and greed. An untold story, however, is the rise in benevolent giving seen in institutional, public and private sectors. Such characteristics as altruism and duty are now as influential as self-interest. The geography of aid has also broadened; networks of NGOs now supplement philanthropy and the global operations of official channels. It has become a crucial counterpart of authorized programs; agencies that provide vital services rely on contributions to augment official doctrines. Yet, the current recession threatens to limit support, diminishing aid at this critical moment when distress is increasing. A new culture of giving that includes volunteering and action, coupled with accumulated expertise may enable imminent needs to be met. “The World of Giving” presents aid's history as an index of past and current relationships, indicating how its future promises a significant global role.

Cotton is grown on every continent, in a broad range of environmental conditions and under widely disparate conditions of production. It is an important raw material for a highly varied and profitable value creation chain, and it is traded on commodities markets throughout the world. Cotton is at the center of the dispute surrounding agricultural subsidies, and it is an important tool in development aid. International chemical companies have just as much interest in it as do the advocates of ecological farming, since it consumes more water, fertilizer, and pesticides than any other crop.
Cotton was already traveling around the world from producer to consumer in colonial times; all that has changed today is the routes it follows. Thus in one common scenario, cotton fibers from Texas are sent to China to be processed, then wend their way to the fashion runways of Paris, and finally travel as old clothes to Africa, where they are worn as secondhand fashion.

Hans Peter Jost has created a photographic portrait of cotton on his trips to India, China, Brazil, America, Uzbekistan, Mali, and Tanzania, documenting the lives and working conditions of cotton farmers and the cultivation, harvesting, processing, and marketing of cotton.

Christina Kleineidam, who accompanied the photographer on his travels, describes what they saw and offers background information on the specific problems of the individual countries. The economist Pietra Rivoli explains the global realities of the cultivation and marketing of cotton in her foreword.

With a preface by Pietra Rivoli
With essays by Christina Kleineidam
With Photographs by Hans Peter Jost

Thanks to their social effectiveness, posters have always been an ideal vehicle for addressing global and urgent ethical appeals to the populace. This publication presents international posters since 1980 that urge us to take responsibility for humanity and the planet. While posters designed by artists to serve their own purposes tend to reflect a desire to enlighten and inform, posters for human rights and environmental organizations and relief agencies are direct attempts to stir individuals into action. In recent years, however, commercial enterprises have also discovered social and ecological engagement as a marketing tool with which to cultivate their image. This book illuminates the broad range of visual strategies and the rhetorical communication of social messages in posters. For posters are as varied in their content, form, and expression as are the motivations and intentions of the clients who commission them.

With an essay by Sønke Gau and Katharina Schlieben

World's Fairs and International Exhibitions have always had a political as well as a commercial and cultural context. This was particularly true during the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union. Jack Masey served with the United States Information Agency from 1951 to 1979, for many years as Director of Design. He commissioned numerous American architects and designers including R. Buckminster Fuller, Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Peter Blake, Ivan Chermayeff and Thomas Geismar to design the US presence at major world Expos including Expo '67 in Montreal and Expo '70 in Osaka. This important new book draws on Masey's recollections, recently declassified documents, unpublished memoirs and photographs, interviews with surviving members of U.S. design teams, and others, to detail the significant role played by architects and designers in shaping America's image during the cultural Cold War.

Politicians are omnipresent in our society. How they present themselves depends on historical context as well as on the prevailing form of government and cultural environment. Vital components of political work are image building, political advertising, election campaigns, and self-representation, but also the tearing down of one’s opponent. The exchange between politicians and the people is marked by a complex disparity. While politicians seek to rally broad sectors of the population behind their programs, they only engage sporadically in a genuine exchange with individuals. This publication illuminates historical roots, epoch-making election campaigns, recurrent patterns in political public relations, and defining figures such as Lenin, Che Guevara, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Yulia Tymoshenko.

With an essay by Thomas Macho

Following the success of “PHOTOsuisse”, “SCIENCEsuisse” deals with science in Switzerland, with twenty-five textual portraits of selected researchers, depicting their development, career milestones, and outstanding research projects from the vantage point of distinguished science journalists. Two essays seek to situate Switzerland as a research venue. Thirteen critical theses deal with research and its general conditions in Switzerland. The texts are illustrated by an extensive photo essay on the researchers and their work. Five aspects lead through the entire publication: where we come from; the world of tomorrow; our health; securing the energy supply; preserving the biosphere.

With contributions by Gottfried Boehm, Carlo Catapano, Mauro Dell’ Ambrogio, Denis Duboule, Christian Eggenberger, Manuel Eisner, Ernst Fehr, Susan Gasser, Michael Grätzel, Bernard Hirschel, Dieter Imboden, Alumit Ishai, Othmar Keel, Laurent Keller, Antonio Lanzavecchia, Ulrike Lohmann, Michel Mayor, Felicitas Pauss, Rolf Pfeifer, Adrian Pfiffner, Bertrand Piccard, Didier Queloz, Martine Rahier, Klaus Scherer, Christian Schönenberger, Thomas Stocker, Brigitte Studer, Pierre Thoman, Martin Schwab, Carel van Schaik, Armin Walpen, Rolf Zinkernagel

High-population centers of enormous size are springing up in China with dizzying speed. With them comes an increased demand for migrant workers in the construction sector, factories, and mines. In growth centers like the Pearl River Delta in Southern China, million people have already set out from the underdeveloped provinces to earn their living there. The photographer Andreas Seibert accompanied the workers repeatedly in order to document their everyday lives and their journey to the high-population centers. Their stories are told in a collection of striking photographs that provide a close-up portrait to complement the current discussion of economic growth in China. With its combination of text and images, this volume conveys a unique impression of the scale of this modern migration of peoples.

With texts by Jeff Kingston, Andreas Seibert, Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao

Following the successful formula of “The Face of Human Rights” and “Who Owns the Water?”, this volume deals with the origin and significance of human belief. Religious phenomena such as the yearning for transcendence, inwardness, the experience of oneness, happiness, meaning in life, and rituals, as well as for models that can help to explain the origins and future of humanity and the world, exist both inside and outside official religious groups. With texts and a clear pictorial language, this volume addresses the phenomenon of religion belief, guiding the reader and viewer into the world of the numinous and mysterious, while also giving them a bit of critical orientation and existential questions to take along with them on their continued quest. The publication also takes a critical look at the traditional world religions, in order to help the reader differentiate between the political, cultural, and specifically religious roots of contemporary conflicts.

“All men are born free and have an equal right to freedom,” states the UN Convention on Human Rights. Almost all nations have signed treaties to this effect, and yet reality looks rather different: everywhere people are tortured and executed, children starve to death and women are raped. And yet the work of the countless human rights actives all over the world is worth while. Proceedings can be instituted against states that fail to meet requirements, as human rights are internationally enshrined. One of humanities essential tasks is to implement them. This visual reader wants to make a contribution. The Face of Human Rights attempts to present all aspects of human rights visually and make them tangible. 720 pages demand that readers address the issues. Over 500 photographs show human rights infringements world-wide and the tireless struggle to implement and preserve those rights. The extensive selection of text explores the background and creates a dense network of links. 

With contributions by Slavenka Drakulic´, Carlos Fuentes, Ryszard Kapus´cin´ski, Alexander Kluge, Sima Samar, Susan Sontag, Wole Soyinka and Margrit Sprecher

The economist Manfred Max-Neef formulated the ten needs of every person: subsistence, protection, affection, participation, recreation, creativity, understanding, identity, freedom, and transcendence, which formed the starting point for the exhibition All We Need in Luxemburg in 2007. Each of these needs has a single chapter of the book devoted to it: Survive, Protect, Love, Stand Up, Relax, Create, Understand, Choose, Dream. An extensive collage of texts and images illustrates the needs, supplemented by journalistic and art-historical images and philosophical quotations.

Industrialization and population growth have brought about a global water crisis. Nature can no longer compensate the exploitation of our freshwater and our oceans. One billion people have no reliable access to clean drinking water; two billion live in precarious hygienic conditions. Famine, poverty, epidemics, and infant mortality are closely linked with the water crisis. Social, ecological, political, and economic conflicts obstruct efforts to resolve the global water crisis. Water is an instrument of power. The key question reads: Is water a commodity or is free access to water an inalienable human right? By approaching water from a phenomenological perspective, Who owns the Water? seeks to persuade the reader that an element that is constantly flowing and changing defies all claims to own it, be they political or economic, and is instead the responsibility of the entire international community.