What We Are Reading Today: The Global Rules of Art: The Emergence and Divisions of a Cultural World Economy

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Updated 23 November 2022
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What We Are Reading Today: The Global Rules of Art: The Emergence and Divisions of a Cultural World Economy

Author: Larissa Buchholz

Prior to the 1980s, the postwar canon of “international” contemporary art was made up almost exclusively of artists from North America and Western Europe, while cultural agents from other parts of the world often found themselves on the margins.

The Global Rules of Art examines how this discriminatory situation has changed in recent decades.

Drawing from abundant sources—including objective indicators from more than one hundred countries, multiple institutional histories and discourses, extensive fieldwork, and interviews with artists, critics, curators, gallerists, and auction house agents—Larissa Buchholz examines the emergence of a world-spanning art field whose logics have increasingly become defined in global terms.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Overinvested’ by Nina Bandelj

Updated 17 February 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Overinvested’ by Nina Bandelj

Parents are exhausted. When did raising children become such all-consuming, never-ending, incredibly expensive, and emotionally absorbing effort? In this eye-opening book, Nina Bandelj explains how we got to this point—how we turned children into financial and emotional investments and child-rearing into laborious work.

At the turn of the 20th century, children went from being economically useful, often working to support families, to being seen by their parents as vulnerable and emotionally priceless.