Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-century Art

Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-century Art
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Venus Come Forth!

The Sublime Gone Wrong

The Good, the Bad, and the Whiner

Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-century Art
Wendy Steiner
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0684857812

Book Description

Whereas previous eras had celebrated beauty as the central aim of art, the modernist avant-garde were deeply suspicious of beauty and its perennial symbols, woman and ornament, preferring instead the thrill and alienation of the sublime. They rejected harmony, empathy, and femininity in a denial still reverberating through art and social relations today. Exploring this casting of Venus, with all her charms, into exile, Wendy Steiner's brilliant, ambitious, and provocative analysis explores the twentieth century's troubled relationship with beauty.

Tracing this strange and damaging history, starting from Kant's aesthetics and Mary Shelley's horrified response in Frankenstein, Steiner untangles the complex attitudes of modernists toward both beauty and the female subject in art. She argues that the avant-garde set out to replace the impurity of woman and ornament with form -- the new arch-symbol of artistic beauty. However, in the process of controlling desire and pleasure in this way, artists admitted the exotic fetish objects of "primitive" cultures -- someone else's power and allure that surely would not overmaster the sophisticated modernist. A century of pornography, shock, and alienation followed, and this rejection of feminine and bourgeois values -- domesticity, intimacy, charm -- kept the female subject an impossible and remote symbol. Ironically, as Steiner reveals, the feminist hostility to the "beauty myth" had a parallel result, leaving Western society alienated from desire and pleasure on all sides.

In the course of this elegantly constructed and accessibly written argument, Steiner explores the cultural history of the century just ended, from Dada to Futurism, T. S. Eliot's Wasteland and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon to Pumping Iron II: The Women and Deep Throat, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Outsider Art, Naomi Wolf and Cindy Sherman, Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo, ranging across art and architecture, poetry and the novel, feminist writing and pornography.

Only in recent years, Steiner demonstrates, has our culture begun to see a way out of this damaging impasse, revising the reputations of neglected artists such as Pierre Bonnard, and celebrating pleasure and charm in the arts of the present. By disentangling beauty from a misogynistic view of femininity -- as passive, narcissistic, sentimental, inefficacious -- Western culture now seems ready to return to the female subject and ornament in art, and to accept male beauty as a possibility to explore and celebrate as well. Steiner finds hints of these developments in the work of figures as varied as the painter Marlene Dumas, the novelist Penelope Fitzgerald, and the choreographer Mark Morris as she leads us to a rediscovery and a reclamation of beauty in the Western world.

From one of our most thoughtful and ambitious cultural critics, this important and thought-provoking work not only provides us with a searching analysis of where we have been in the last century but reveals the promise of where we might be going in the coming one.

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The author of "The Scandal of Pleasure: Art in an Age of Fundamentalism" now takes an ambitious and provocative new look at the evolving definition of "beauty" in our culture, from Manet to Mapplethorpe, Mary Shelley to Martha Stewart.

Customer Reviews:

Venus Come Forth!.......2004-03-15

I bought this book and was thoroughly pleased. Steiner is a great writer and has consistently written good work. I do agree that her agenda is a little heavy, but if you care to read her other work you will see that she is qualified in making the pronouncements she does. It is the privilege of anyone who has worked this long in the field. I would recommend reading her "Pictures of Romance" for a deeper treatment of aesthetics. It is a great book as well. This book however, is correct in the thesis it sets out to trace. Steiner locates the demise of the concept of beauty in Kantian aesthetics, specifically the "Critique of Judgment". I especially appreciate the way she makes Kant's arguments come alive by comparing them to Shelley's Frankenstein. In the end Kant trades places with Frankenstein...the doctor and the monster. Steiner works out her feminism by removing the locus of intellectual value from Kant, and placing it with Mary Shelley. That's good feminism, subtle and unmistakeable. Some people may not like Steiner because her feminism is not of the usual kind. I mean, she is not a "beauty myth" kind of feminist. Don't think she's not a feminist though, her message is loud and clear. I recommend this book strongly.

The Sublime Gone Wrong.......2001-12-23

Steiner recasts the thread of 20th century art as the search for the sublime gone wrong. The Kantian definition of the sublime as that which inspires awe and disinterested interest has lead to a dehumanization of art. According to her,this has come about because in the search for the eternal values that are associated with the sublime, the merely lovely has come to be associated with transience. Beauty has also been implicated, certainly as it applies to female subjects in art, since human beauty fades and turns to its opposite, it cannot be a fit subject for the search for the sublime. The process has led to a sterility driven by the replacement of life perpetuating emotions with formal issues. The course of art in the past century has thus followed a path through ever greater alienation. Artists have felt compelled to tackle ever more emotion laden and controversial subjects, confronting and challenging the public to see beyond the shock value to the formal issues that the artist purports to be elevating to the level of sublime.

As an artist who has been wrestling with these issues for over a quarter century, I really enjoyed Steiner's lucid exposition of the Zeitgeist which forms the backdrop for most thinking artist's work. Artist and public both, I believe dance rather unconsciously around the issues she is writing about. We know on an instinctual level what is going on, but it is really enlightening to read someone's thoughtful analysis. I found her writing enjoyable to read and quite accessible.

Her focus is primarily on the depiction of women in art as subjects for the contemplation of beauty. She shows how the images of women in the last 100 years or so have reflected the rejection of life perpetuating human emotions as unfit for high art. She sees signs of change. We are no longer requiring a sacrifice of what makes us human in the name of art. She sees a time "when beauty, pleasure, and freedom again become the domain of aesthetic experience and art offers a worthy ideal for life."

I highly recommend this book to artist and art appreciator alike, anyone who has wondered why avant garde art always seems so ugly.

The Good, the Bad, and the Whiner.......2001-11-28

In a sense, Wendy Steiner finds little to distinguish appearance from reality. In Venus in Exile, The rejection of Beauty in 20th-Century Art, for example, Steiner equates the 'beauty' of a woman as person with the 'beauty' of that woman's depiction. Ironically, Steiner borrows this universalizing view from the same philosopher that she identifies as anathema to beauty. Following Kant, Steiner links natural to artistic beauty, and, hence, holds an aesthetic view that overrides ontological categories. Thus, in the world according to Stiener Beauty equals Woman equals Art. The snake in the garden, however, is Kant's idea of the sublime. The sublime appeals, she claims, to the self-erasing thrill of a brush with death. In contrast, the allure of beauty promotes interest in life. In fact, Steiner recommends that viewers and artwork interact after the model of Cupid and Psyche. (Imagine, for example, a chummy interaction of diner and bed with Notre Dame or a piano concerto.) Moreover, the desire to experience the thrill of the sublime explains the denial of Beauty/Woman that characterizes the art of the 20th century. In addition to the distortions (i.e. pornographic imagery) or avoidance (i.e. non-representational shapes) of female figuration, 20t-century art also excludes or diminishes domestic subjects. Together the exclusions of beauty and woman and the 'good' or the non-aesthetic value of domesticity show, Steiner argues, the misogyny of the artists and, thereby, their hatred of life, love, and so on.

Given Steiner's credentials, the intellectual sloppiness that informs Venus in Exile is disappointing. In addition to her uncritical acceptance of art defined as aesthetic effect, her opinions betray Freud -images in art as in dream point to external causes-as the father of her psycho - utopian love child called Venus in Exile. Moreover, why the sudden, slap dash treatment of modern dance and the tiresome swipe at ballet in the last three pages of the book? That addition did little more than demean the art forms. Art forms, moreover, dominated by women. Finally, the hyperbole that demonized Kant and reduced the artwork of an entire century to the status of thrill distracted from rather than expanded on the topics of art, aesthetics, and woman as subject.

Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-Century Art. (Books: beauty myths).(Review): An article from: American Scholar
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Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-Century Art. (Books: beauty myths).(Review): An article from: American Scholar
Evelyn Toynton
Manufacturer: Phi Beta Kappa Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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ASIN: B0008IE48S
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from American Scholar, published by Phi Beta Kappa Society on September 22, 2001. The length of the article is 1467 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-Century Art. (Books: beauty myths).(Review)
Author: Evelyn Toynton
Publication: American Scholar (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2001
Publisher: Phi Beta Kappa Society
Volume: 70 Issue: 4 Page: 143(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Venus in Exile The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-Century Art

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Venus in Exile The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-Century Art
Wendy Steiner
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQ5M6W

Customer Reviews:

Too Hot.......1999-05-12

This book has the greatest fashion and beauty photographs ever taken! If you've ever longed for a world in which men take better care of their appearance, let this book work it's magical, balmy spell.:)

Amazon.com

Stephen King fans fervently awaited The Green Mile, filmmaker Frank Darabont's second movie adaptation of a King novel (the first being The Shawshank Redemption, another period piece set in prison). The Green Mile: The Screenplay reveals Darabont's deft script style despite nary a character description. The adaptation must be one of the most pure ever written; nearly every character and major scene from the novel is represented in the screenplay, often with verbatim dialogue. Both Darabont and King contribute introductions, illustrating the warm friendship between the two, and detailed film credits, drawings of two storyboarded sequences, and 20 black-and-white photos enrich the script. For those interested in witnessing how a movie changes from screenplay to final product, the shooting script version of The Shawshank Redemption makes for a far more intriguing read--and Darabont's post-production essay on the metamorphosis is fascinating. --Doug Thomas

Book Description

The Official Screenplay to the Castle Rock Entertainment Film

Frank Darabont's screenplay is a faithful adaptation of Stephen King's story set on the death-row block at Cold Mountain Correctional Facility during the Great Depression. Starring Tom Hanks, the film is narrated by the superintendent of death row who tells the story of a mysterious inmate, a prisoner with the body of a giant and the mind of a child, who is allegedly guilty of murdering two little girls. While awaiting his execution, the mysterious inmate displays odd supernatural powers that cause his fellow inmates and guards to question their beliefs about everything they hold dear.

Included with the full screenplay are selected storyboards, behind-the-scenes photos, and an introduction by Stephen King.

Customer Reviews:

Darabont Triumphs Again........2001-03-03

I am amazed at the genius of Frank Darabont. SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is the type of film that many directors spend their entire lives trying to make. That film alone is worthy of placing Darabont in the top echelon of modern directors. However, with THE GREEN MILE, Darabont has triumphed again. This screenplay is not as in depth as the SHAWSHANK shooting script. Nevertheless, it is still quite informative and is a useful resource for aspiring filmmakers. Transcribing an already successful published work into a successful movie is extremely difficult and rarely happens. However, Darabont has done it twice. A person can learn a great deal about writing just by reading this book. There's no better way to learn than to learn from a master.

All The Wonders of the Film In Print.......2000-11-04

I bought this book after I saw the movie. The main reason is because this film touched me deeply. Secondly I collect screen plays. This is a true gem! The film's beauty is printed as an unforgettable story. Screen play is based on Novel series by Stephen King. Excellent screen play!!

There is an angel somewhere!.......2000-02-20

I discovered the first episodes of The Green Mile in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the last ones in France. I read them. I was moved by strong emotions, practically to tears, and yet I remained unsatisfied. I reread it when it came out in one volume, and I had the same sensation of frustration. The book, the story had two lines and the unity was not clear, the message was not obvious and it seemed to be that there is always a devil somewhere to torture, at times to death, the righteous and the innocent. The two time lines were not really reinforcing each other. The bad nurse of the old people's home was not a real continuation of Percy, and Percy did not have and could not have, does not have and cannot have a continuation. Evil in man is repetitive, but in no way continuing, developing, getting any kind of amplification with time. I have just been listening to a tape about the psychiatric hospitals of the old days (up to the mid 70s in France), and the doctors, the nurses, and even the patients, those who dedicated their whole life to get rid of that institution, compared these asylums to concentration camps and demonstrated how the inmates were reduced to animals, and yet resisting, how the rations (during World War II) where starvation rations meant to slowly kill the inmates by starving them. Doctor Lucien Bonnafé, MD, cannot be in any way stopped in his explanation of this alienation, of this reduction of men to vegetables, especially with the chemical straight jacket. Hitler did not invent concentration camps, and he did not invent eugenics, the cleansing of society of their misfits. He just systematised, industrialised it. But, But, BUT, I finally got to the screenplay of The Green Mile by Frank Darabont. He got that second time line out. He recentered the whole story on Paul, the only one Paul that crosses time. And then the light came out so strong that I was not moved any more, but literally blinded into ever stronger and never before experienced emotions, into unquenchable tears, tears that were a salvation, a redemption, an epiphany that would not ever satisfy and quench my thirst for optimistic humanism. This human world contains angels that can transform evil into good, and it is John Coffey, a black man. He has done that for a very long time, till the one day he gets trapped by his naivete and simplemindedness, because angels are naive, simpleminded and maybe slightly retarded, since then cannot conceive evil. When one does only good things and can only bring good news to the world, he is totally isolated, rejected, and thus he becomes the prey of all evil beings who will abuse him and trampled him down. And yet he is not completely trapped, because he comes to the point when he wants to go, to leave this world, where he can only love and be loved by fireflies. So he is happy when he gets trapped, relieved of this enormous responsibility of making the world better, of killing or repairing evil. Even if it means Death Row. But, before leaving, he gives his good nature to some other beings, even if he cannot give them his powers. Here it is a mouse, Mr Jingles, and a man, Paul. And his gift takes the form of a very long life. The very long life of telling the truth, the truth of God, the truth that killing is ugly, no matter whether it is criminal or judicial. Only life is beautiful, and the story of life has to be told forever and ever, to push death away, even if it is Death Row. This life story has to be told over and over again, just like a mouse will play with a spool forever. And thus, Darabont gets us to a universal lesson, to a unique and eternal metaphor. The writer, the storyteller is forever the one who will bring life to earth, real life, the life of justice, of beauty, of emotions, of truth, of entertainment, of happiness. The storyteller is God himself, or at least his angel, because he nourishes our souls with the desire to know a better world. When are we ever going to have the film, the video, so that we can be moved to frantic tears by the images that will demultiply the screenplay into a real piece of human paradise, in our dreams, in our night, in our daydream, in our sunshine of hope ?

"The Green Mile": Blueprint for a Perfect Film.......2000-01-18

With "The Green Mile: The Screenplay", writer-director Frank Darabont provides would-be screenwriters with an unprecedented look at how a perfect screen adaptation is written. Stephen King, author of the novel on which the film is based, has called Darabont's screenplay "hands-down, the best film adaptation I've ever read." Tom Hanks, the film's star, said of the screenplay, "It's that rarest thing, that thing you're always looking for, this piece of work that shows up on your desk, ready to shoot, and you look at it and say, 'Wow! We just have to show up and make this thing!'" In most situations, directors come to actors hat in hand, begging actors to work on a film. With "The Green Mile", Darabont had actors lining up to work in the film. Even actors of the stature of Gary Sinise were willing to take virtual cameos to appear in the film. The book contains Darabont's final shooting script, which even in that form, contains minor differences from the finished film. It also features introductions by Stephen King and Darabont, as well as a selection of stills and storyboards which give readers added insight into the production of what is easily this year's best film. Although lacking the in-depth analysis of changes in the screenplay which were present in Darabont's last book, "The Shawshank Redemption: The Shooting Script", this book is well worth reading, and, in copanionship with the forthcoming "The Making of 'The Green Mile'", will give readers a guided tour of the production of a modern film classic.

"The Green Mile": Blueprint for a Perfect Screenplay.......2000-01-16

Frank Darabont found himself in an enviable position with his screenplay adapting Stephen King's "The Green Mile" to the screen; instead of going hat-in-hand to stars and begging them to appear in his film, he had major Hollywood talent lining up around the block, asking to BE in the film! Anyone wishing to know why can read his screenplay, published by Simon & Schuster and featuring an introduction by Stephen King, who has labeled it the best adaptation of his or anyone's work ever.

Darabont skillfuly adapts King's novel to the screen.; not a slavish adaptation, this screenplay seeks instead to convey the spirit of King's novel in cinematic terms. For example, instead of having prison guard Paul Edgecomb go out and investigate the murders of the two dead girls for which his prisoner, John Coffey, has been condemned, he finds out by a transfer of information osmoticqally from Coffey. This serves the twofold purpose of shortening the film's running time (the finished film is over three hours in length), and also works much better cinematically, conveying the needed information in four minutes instead of twenty or so. The chance to read a Darabont screenplay is one aspiring screenwriters should take. I was privileged to work with Frank Darabont on "The Green Mile". It is an experience I will never forget, and I cannot recommend this book, or the film to which it gave rise, enough.

The Green Mile - The Screenplay
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The Green Mile - The Screenplay
Frank; With an introduction by King, Stephen Darabont
Manufacturer: Scribner / Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000IXA77A

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Killing Defence at Bridge (Master Bridge Series)
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Advanced book

Bridge defence, but not for beginners

Sharpen your defense - you can COUNT on it!

A constant reference to sharpen defensive skills

Killing Defence at Bridge (Master Bridge Series)
Hugh Kelsey , and Klinger Kelsey
Manufacturer: Cassell P L C
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Watson's Classic Book on The Play of the Hand at Bridge

ASIN: 0304357774

Book Description

Killing Defence at Bridge is one of the all-time classics of the game. When it was first published, it revolutionized defense play, and today it continues to be as incisive and relevant as ever.

Customer Reviews:

Advanced book.......2007-07-26

There are many very good books on Defense. This is still one of the best. A nice set of topics and problems. A few of the problems use bidding that wouldn't be mainstream today and thus are less likely to be solved.

The book focuses on visualization, rather than preventing a Criss Cross Squeeze (though there is a chapter in squeeze defense).

Bridge defence, but not for beginners.......2004-12-19

This is a book for good defenders. If you don't defend well, you need to learn how to defend before you read this.

Kelsey teaches you to practice defending well. And that means counting to 13, over and over and over again. And it helps. If you are indeed a good defender, this will help make you a very good defender.

The 15 pages on opening leads helped me more than the rest of the book combined. Right after reading the chapter, I played in a bridge tournament. Declarer had bid both majors and dummy had picked hearts, a suit I held A-x in. I immediately led the low heart, stopping declarer from ruffing spades while maintaining control, and setting the contract. It was almost exactly the hand Kelsey had shown on page 61!

That's the good thing about this book. There's plenty of examples that are very similar to what you'll find in actual play. It improved my defensive play noticeably.

Sharpen your defense - you can COUNT on it!.......2000-11-15

All too often, bridge books present hands that look as if they were "set up." In order to get the right answer, you simply eliminate the "obvious" play. Not so in this book. Kelsey's hands look like those ordinary hands you might face in your local club or home game. Kelsey demonstrates that by thoroughly counting a hand (points, cards, tricks), a player can much more easily arrive at the killing defense. That's the major lesson in this book - counting, and Kelsey does a magnificent job of teaching it!

A constant reference to sharpen defensive skills.......1996-10-07

Kelsey's innovative approach to Bridge defence will have even the most skilled defender reading avidly. The problems and his approach to solving them are unique. The descriptions of the plays and options make entertaining reading in themselves and the experianced player is able to smile wrly on identifying their own common errors. A reference book that is great to read from cover to cover or just open at any page and try the hand. All players will come back to this book to be reminded what they have forgotten or find new ways to teach old dogs tricks.

More Killing Defence at Bridge (Master Bridge Series)

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More Killing Defence
Tired of discarding from 10xxx and letting 3NT make?

More Killing Defence at Bridge (Master Bridge Series)
Hugh Walter Kelsey
Manufacturer: Cassell P L C
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Killing Defence at Bridge (Master Bridge Series)
Adventures in Card Play (Master Bridge Series)
Why You Lose at Bridge
Kelsey on Squeeze Play (Master Bridge Series)
How to Read Your Opponents' Cards

ASIN: 0304366145

Book Description

This sequel to Hugh Kelsey's bestselling Killing Defence at Bridge focuses on the importance of what to discard and how to control options in defence. By helping you develop insights into the hidden possibilities in the lie and play of the cards, this book will make you a sought-after partner, and a respected opponent.

Customer Reviews:

More Killing Defence.......2007-09-21

I have just started to read this book, but the first chapter - on discardng - is excellent. This topic is not really covered in any other bridge books that I have seen - and Kelsey's discussion of it is well worth the price of the book.

Tired of discarding from 10xxx and letting 3NT make?.......2001-02-23

Are you sick and tired of discarding from Txxx and letting 3NT romp home, when you could have discarded from JTxx and set it? Are you weary of watching declarer happily test one suit to see if it breaks, then try a finesse if that doesn't work, then try a squeeze if that doesn't work, when you could have forced declarer to commit to an early decision before he could extract much information about the defensive holdings? Are you guilt-ridden about the times you happily gave partner an early ruff and then watched him squirm because you endplayed him? Are you fed up with being -650 on a board and opening the score slip to discover most of the field was -620? Then read this book -- it is devoted to restricting declarer's options, preserving the defenders' options, and discarding correctly in situations that come up 3 times a session, not once a quarter. Buy two and give partner one. Hide it from the opponents -- soon you will be declarer again, so you mustn't let them read it!

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Killing Defence at Bridge

Manufacturer: CASSELL LBS (ORIO)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H94YX8

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MORE KILLING DEFENCE AT BRIDGE
H.W. KELSEY
Manufacturer: Cassell P L C
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OSRNFS

The New Conceptual Selling: The Most Effective and Proven Method for Face-to-Face Sales Planning
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Good material but difficult to read

Revised, Updated...and Better

An important contribution

same old sales ideas

Combine it with "Strategic Selling" and start selling!

The New Conceptual Selling: The Most Effective and Proven Method for Face-to-Face Sales Planning
Robert B. Miller , Stephen E. Heiman , Tad Tuleja , and John Philip Coghlan
Manufacturer: Business Plus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The New Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by the World's Best Companies

The New Successful Large Account Management: Maintaining and Growing Your Most Important Assets -- Your Customers

Never Cold Call Again: Achieve Sales Greatness Without Cold Calling

Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets

SPIN Selling

ASIN: 0446695181

Book Description

The Most Effective and Proven Method for Face-to-Face Sales Planning Even in a world of cyber commerce, nothing beats a face-to-face meeting. And if youre one of those men and women who make their living in this highly demanding environment, this new edition of Conceptual Selling will change the way you interact with customers and clients, and the way you conduct your business career. Learn: How to identify your customers real needs and use listening as a powerful selling tool. How to tailor every sale you make to one specific clientand how to create a system that is consistent, flexible, and successful. How to earn and maintain your credibilityby creating a pattern of Win-Win sales.

Customer Reviews:

Good material but difficult to read.......2006-12-27

The material in the book is reasonably good, particularly because it is different from most selling books. What is wrong with it?

1. A great deal of overlap with their other book "The New Strategic Selling". Do not buy both books!

2. A very boring writing style. It looks like they wrote the headings and then wrote the contents because a lot of the content reads like filler - or "waffle".

3. It is extremely repetitive, which adds to the boredom factor.

4. The insistence on using sexist language. People are mostly but inconsistently referred to as "she". This goes as far as referring to a person previously described as "Mr President" as "she". I want to learn selling not to get a hamfisted and condescending lesson in sexist language. Hint to the authors: if you want to be non-sexist, just say "he or she" - people can read it fast and it doesn't get in the way.

This book could have been half the length and it would have been excellent.

Revised, Updated...and Better.......2005-05-04

NOTE: The review which follows is of the revised and updated (i.e. most recently published) edition co-authored by Robert B. Miller and Stephen E. Heiman with Tad Tuleja.

I read the first edition of this book when it was published 18 years ago. Hence my curiosity about this edition. What's new? In fact, a great deal. Miller and Heiman have thoroughly revised the original material, "page by page, to tighten the prose, clarify explanations, and provide up-to-date examples from [current and recent] Miller Heiman clients." For example, they have refined their explication of Concept and product (as indicated in Chapter 4) and expanded their discussions of Question Types while providing clarifications of two concepts which, apparently, often prove puzzling: Action Commitment and Valid Business Reason.

They have also included discussion of Single Sales Objective in Chapter 5. (This concept was originally developed within the Strategic Selling program and is now a component of Conceptual Selling.) "Most dramatically, we have revised the entire sequence of the Conceptual Selling `modules'...Another new element is a question-and-answer epilogue where we address some of the interesting challenges which our clients have posed to us."

Miller and Heiman respond to 15 questions generated by their "continuing dialogue" with those who enroll in various Conceptual Selling workshops. For example:

#1. Isn't Conceptual Selling just another name for consultative selling?

A: "There are similarities, to be sure, but they're not the same." Miller and Heiman pay due respect to Mark Hanan (author of another business bestseller, Consultative Selling) while explaining how his ideas -- which they greatly admire -- and theirs differ. See the complete response to this question pages 348-349.

#6. Having a Valid Business Reason implies that you know something about the customer before you go in. How do you do that when you're making a cold call?

A: "You're still making cold calls? The whole point of a Valid Business Reason is to render them unnecessary." How so? See the complete response to this question on page 349.

#14. Is Unique Strength another name for "competitive advantage"? And should I compare my company's Unique Strengths to those of the competition?

A: "Not exactly." Miller and Heiman briefly explain that, in economic theory, a "competitive advantage is a point of superiority that one company has over its competitors" whereas a "Unique Strength is much more specific than that: It's the contribution [italics] one company's solution can make make to [italics] one customer in [one] area that the customer perceives as better than any competing solution." See the complete response to this question on pages 361-362.

NOTE: In Buyer-Approved Selling: Sales Secrets from the Buyer's Side of the Desk, Michael Schell also suggests all manner of strategies and tactics by which to formulate and then present what Miller and Heiman identify as a Unique Strength. Presumably they and Schell agree with Warren Buffett, however, who once suggested that cost is what we charge but value is what someone else thinks it's worth. Nothing is a Unique Strength (or whatever else you call it) unless so perceived by customers and, equally important, by prospective customers.

Everyone in sales should have her or his own "toolkit." Some of its contents are provided by the given employee, others are provided by formal training and/or a supervisor, and still others from a book such as this. Long ago, I realized that strategies are "hammers" and tactics are "nails." The former drive the latter. That said, I presume to offer a caveat. Keep in mind this bromide: a camel is a horse designed by a committee.

Obviously, it would be foolish to stuff a "toolkit" with everything offered by Miller and Heiman in combination with everything offered in other excellent books such the aforementioned Consultative Selling and Buyer-Approved Selling as well as Neil Rackham's SPIN Selling, Anthony Parinello's Selling To VITO (The Very Important Top Officer), Michael Bosworth's Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets and CustomerCentric Selling,and Keith M Eades's The New Solution Selling: The Revolutionary Sales Process That is Changing the Way People Sell.

Presumably Miller and Heiman agree that readers of books such as theirs must be aware of everything available in what could be called "The Salesperson's Super Hardware Store." The challenge is to select and then use effectively those tools which are most appropriate to the given marketplace.

Given how attractively priced the most recently published paperback editions of The New Strategic Selling and The New Conceptual Selling are, I highly recommend both. My guess (only a guess) is that The New Conceptual Selling will be most valuable to those who have sales management and/or sales training responsibilities as well as to those whose career ambitions include obtaining such responsibilities.

An important contribution.......2004-09-08

While today the book's content seems pretty basic, at its publication the idea of thoroughly understanding the concept of the customer wasn't exactly widespread. Presenting without prior analyzing the goals and theories of the client, or misunderstanding them, is a prescription for objections. Don't make assumptions, is what we learn from this book, and we should be thankful for being reminded by the authors about this fundamental sales rule.

same old sales ideas.......2004-07-09

After reading enthusiastic reviews I bought this and the Conceptual Selling book. A basic premise is the salesperson's ability to ask questions, and not just talk. Maybe this is a revelation for someone new to sales, but as I kept reading I found this book just restating the obvious. I've been in sales for 25 years, and this book is nothing new. Catchy title, they obviously have a lot of big name clients. Good book for a rookie though, but an insult to veteran salespeople.

Combine it with "Strategic Selling" and start selling!.......2003-04-09

I read this book to prepare myself for a salescourse at the company where I work. As it turns out I am no salesman, but the trainer did note that I had a very good insight into the salesprocess. So good, in fact, that he advised me to become a selling consultant for my company instead of a salesman. All that, thanks to having read this book in combination with "The New Strategic Selling" (also by Heiman). If you really want to start selling, you must read this book!

The New Conceptual Selling: The Most Effective and Proven Method for Face-to-Face Sales Planning

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The New Conceptual Selling: The Most Effective and Proven Method for Face-to-Face Sales Planning
Robert B. Miller , Stephen E. Heiman , Tad Tuleja , and John Philip Coghlan
Manufacturer: Business Plus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K4LUDC

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The New Conceptual Selling® : The Most Effective and Proven Method for Face-to-Face Sales Planning

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: 1889888087

Product Description

The New Conceptual Selling® provides step-by-step tactics for achieving effective communication during one-on-one sales calls and managing all customer interactions. The newly revised edition contains expanded discussions on question types, clarification of action commitments and valid business reasons, reinforcement of single sales objectives, and effective call planning. In every sales cycle there are critical points-of-impact where what you say and how you say it can dramatically influence the outcome of the deal. It begins with your first sales call and continues with every communication you have with your prospect. Updated and revised audio version of the popular and timeless book. On 2 CDs. Suggested retail value $39.95.

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