An Introduction to Visual Culture provides a wide ranging introduction to the now established interdisciplinary field of visual culture. Tracing the history and theory of visual culture, from painting to the World Wide Web, An Introduction to Visual Culture asks how and why visual media have become so central to everyday life. This new, thoroughly updated second edition has been adapted to match the changes and developments within the field since the publication of the first edition over a decade ago. An improved text design and color images make this an even more valuable teaching tool.Brand new features in the second edition include Key Image studies and a Key Words section in each chapter, which discuss a selection of important terms and the debates that surround them. In this innovative, thoroughly revised edition, Nicholas Mirzoeff explores: the rise and growing importance of visual culture; a wide range of visual forms, including painting, sculpture, photography, television, cinema, Virtual Reality, and the internet; the importance of 'race' and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and the body in visual culture; and, key images, from Holbein's The Ambassadors, to images from Blade Runner and the Abu Graib atrocities. This book describes the importance of images of natural disaster and conflict, such Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing war in Iraq.