No other book on modern and contemporary art presents in as authoritative and concise a manner the ideas that underlie the diverse and radical developments of the last hundred years.

In this new edition, an important essay, "Postmodernism and the Art of Identity," not only brings the story of modern art right up to the present, but also introduces the unexpected development of returning to art the day-to-day meaning it may have lost, through engagement with issues raised in the representation of gender, sexuality, and AIDS.

In other essays by some of the most internationally acclaimed writers on art, the extraordinary challenges of twentieth-century art are introduced and discussed with unparalleled lucidity, intelligence, and factual accuracy.