“Bally’s contemporary elegance and modern craftsmanship will take centre stage as the brand celebrates its 160th Anniversary in 2011. With special collections and exclusive events planned throughout the year, Bally intends to highlight its renowned mastery in creating shoes and luxury leather goods since 1851.”

Written by Jean-Louis Cohen, Sheldon H. Solow Chair for the History of Architecture, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War is out this week from Yale University Press.

This fascinating book offers a new perspective on the architectural history of the Second World War, which in previous accounts has most often been viewed as a hiatus between peaceful periods of production. Jean-Louis Cohen contends instead that during the years between the bombings of Guernica in 1937 and of Hiroshima in 1945, specific advances were fundamental to the process of modernization and led to the definitive supremacy of modernism in architecture.

The title features 300 illustrations, running the gamut from architectural plans to technological inventions.

Available from Amazon.

Take a look at the full cover after the jump.

Historian Deborah Valenze’s latest book is the first cultural history of milk. She asks, in Milk: A Local and Global History, just how the product became a near-universal symbol of modern health. She combines business and science, and also delves into the religious meanings of milk and celebrations of the pastoral life. In the end, it’s a tome meant to force reflection about our relationship to food both past and present.

Valenze teaches at Barnard College.

From Yale University Press. Available from Amazon.

Curated recently profiled new book on the history of grafffiti as art and its impact over the last decades. “Coming this April, The History of American Graffiti traces the evolution of graffiti from New York and Philadelphia across the United States with unprecedented scope. Written by Roger Gastman and Caleb Neelon, the book covers street legends like Taki 183 and new street art stars like Barry McGee.”

Available from Amazon.

There is some history we don’t want surfacing as a fashion trend. (We’re looking at you, Neighborhood). That said, Steven Heller’s “Stripes Strip Humanity” from imprint is terrific and our tip for read of the day. He begins, “Prison uniforms are graphically designed so an inmate can be immediately recognized as such. Originally a horizontal white and black ‘bee-striped’ uniform was the most popular (and stereotypical) prison garb in the U.S.. Striped prison uniforms commonly used in the 19th and twentieth centuries were abolished in the United States during the mid century because ‘their continued use as a badge of shame was considered undesirable.’”

The rest, complimented by some fantastic photographs, can be read here.

Gotham through picture postcards. Little further description is needed for New York in Postcards 1880-1980: The Andreas Adam Collection. The book, edited by Thomas Kramer, releases officially on October 29, 2010, and presents no less than 900 postcards. This number, you might imagine, covers quite a lot of ground. From the obvious to slightly esoteric spots, the Adam’s collection provides comprehensive history through ephemera over a full century.

Captivating. And, available from Amazon.

New from Yale University Press, Alan Allport’s Demobbed: Coming Home After World War Two.

What happened when millions of British servicemen were “demobbed”—demobilized—after World War II? Most had been absent for years, and the joy of arrival was often clouded with ambivalence, regrets, and fears. Returning soldiers faced both practical and psychological problems, from reasserting their place in the family home to rejoining a much-altered labor force. Civilians worried that their homecoming heroes had been barbarized by their experiences and would bring crime and violence back from the battlefield. Drawing on personal letters and diaries, newspapers, reports, novels, and films, Alan Allport illuminates the darker side of the homecoming experience for ex-servicemen, their families, and society at large—a gripping story that’s in danger of being lost to national memory.

Allport is a postdoctoral lecturer at Princeton. His book is a must for all military history buffs, and those celebrating the good old days of mid-century America.

Available from Amazon.

Home Base: Memories of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field stems from an innovative program at Brooklyn Historical Society, Exhibition Laboratory. Essentially, Ex Lab functions as an after-school museum studies course for motivated New York high-schoolers. Their work for the Brooklyn Historical Society, now on view, relays the highs and lows of the Dodger era in Brooklyn.

The students work through objects – photographs, uniforms, etc. – and oral histories to form a compelling story of a pivotal time in American baseball history.

Worth heading to Brooklyn to check out.

Who doesn’t like a surfer girl?

The California Surf Museum is currently celebrating the history of Women on Waves in a comprehensive exhibition that covers the full story of feminine surfing. Included are Hawaiian surfing Queens and a full look at beach fashion. The history, stretching over 300 years, is told through artifacts, film, and photography.

Women on Waves caught our eye, and will surely also do wonders to help advance the cause of the California Surf Museum mission of preserving all and sundry when it comes to riding giants.

A brief clip about surfing in the 1930s after the jump.

We all know Pendleton Woolen Mills. But, what do we know about the town of Pendleton, Oregon?

Frankly, nothing.

Good thing for us, the Oregon Historical Society is currently celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the Pendleton Round-Up. The event was devised in 1910 to give the town a signature event. Founding president Roy Riley laid it down, “Pendleton, like lots of other good towns, is pretty quiet, it’s asleep.  Let’s wake it up.  We can’t hold a Rose Carnival like Portland, nor a Cherry Fair like Salem, nor a Regatta and Naval Pageant like Astoria, but we can give any town on the map cards and spades and win out hands down when it comes to bronco busting.”

The exhibition includes all sorts of good artifacts, photographs, and stories, outlining 100 years of the cowboy classic.

Images from the show and a brief video follow. Always fun to learn a little something about the towns that birthed important brands. Real heritage, if you will…

Tall in the Saddle closes on July 4, 2010.