Description

Celebration--acting variously as a binding force for a community or as a self-congratulatory act, carried out in settings as intimate as a family dinner and as grand as tickertape parades--would seem to be so fundamental to human behavior as to operate ahistorically. But the various ways we celebrate--how we crown our heroes, how and when we clap during an opera, how we wave our flags at victory celebrations, how we fête our celebrities--are structured in vastly different fashions depending on context and period. Cabinet 52, with a special section on "Celebration," features D. Graham Burnett on the history of confetti; George Pendle on stamps celebrating other nations' technological achievements; and James Trainor on the martial motifs of Israeli greeting cards. Elsewhere in the issue: Andrea Scott on the color bittersweet; Martin Kemp on Leonardo's library; and Sasha Archibald on the history of book indexes.