Shahrzad: History

"Welcome to History," reads one of the endless opening pages of this dense paperback. The Shahrzad collective (Shirana Shahbazi, Manuel Krebs, Tirdad Zolghadr) once again tackles geopolitical aesthetics via idiosyncratic linkages of metonymy and allegory, textual poetics and iconic images, blunt content and overbearing design. In the words of the collective: "These days, it seems that even in those prosperous, provincial environs we call the West, history is becoming a more complex affair than the Eurocentric teleology of Ihow we ended up the joyous pinnacle of civilization, happy as pigs in shit.'... And yet, throughout this apparent free-for-all, History as we know it persists." The upshot of all that theorizing is a densely and decoratively set compendium of material from Pliny the Elder, Michael Jackson and Christopher Columbus, among other luminaries, set under headings including "The Death of the Historian," "The Great Wall of China," "Mystery" and "Ali G."