English Summary/英文概要： Contemporary art is increasingly concerned with swaying the opinions of its viewier. To do so, the art employs various strategies to convey a political message. This book provides readers with the tools to decode and appreciate political art, a crucial and understudied direction in post-war art. From the postwar works of Pablo Picasso and Alexander Deineka to thie Border Film Project and web-based works of Beatriz da Costa, Art and Politics: a Small History of Art for Social Change after 1945 considers how artists visual or otherwise have engaged with major political and grassroots movements, particularly after 1960. With its broad definition of the political, this book features chapters on postcolonialism, feminism, the anti-war movement, environmentalism, gay rights and anti-globiliaztion. It charts how individual artworks reverberated with enormous idealogical shifts. While emphasising the West, Art and Politics takes global developments into account as well - looking at art production practiced by postcolonial African, Latin American and Middle Eastern artists. Its case-study approach to the subject provides the reader with an overview of a most complex subject.

This book will also challenge its readers to consider often devalued and marginalised political artworks as properly part of the history of modern and contemporary art.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 当代艺术越来越因其天马行空般的独创性而受外界关注。为此,艺术采用各种方法来传达出政治信息。本书为读者提供了解读工具来，以鉴赏这些富有政治意味的艺术,其关键的转折点在战后艺术潮流的发展方向。从战后毕加索作品和Alexander Deineka的作者，到希望边境电影项目，和一位跨学科的艺术家Beatriz da Costa的作品,《艺术和政治:二战后的社会变革史》回望了艺术家的视觉或其他形式是如何参与重大政治和平民基层运动,特别在1960年之后的。以其对政治的广泛定义,本书介绍了艺术对后殖民主义,女权运动,反战运动,环保,同性恋权利和反全球化的影响。展示了这些独具代表性的个人艺术品是如何洋溢着巨大的实效性。当作者从全球发展，强调西方艺术和政治——同时还着眼于后殖民时期非洲艺术、拉丁美洲和中东的艺术家的艺术实践，为读者解析这一复杂的课题，提供了案例研究方法。
这本书也将挑战读者经常嗤之和被边缘化的当代艺术历史中部分具有政治色彩艺术作品。(Sandy)

Awards/获奖情况： Whosoever wants to get a great overview and detailed information about art and politics should read Claudia Mesch’s book. It gives sound information on the art of the twentieth century and the major artists that contributed to this important aspect of art, in a time when most artists today only produce pleasing art.

Salomé (W. Cihlarz) painter, sculptor, and punk singer

Art and Politics’ is a succinct history of political art that recovers important, marginalized artists. But more, it conveys the continuing need for art that reconfigures, regroups, and redirects the collective, and as such is a great resource for practicing artists. --Delinda Collier, Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Claudia Mesch is Associate Professor of Art History at the School of Art at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. Her publications include Joseph Beuys: The Reader (edited with Viola Michely, I.B.Tauris and MIT Press, 2007) and Modern Art at the Berlin Wall: Demarcating Culture in the Cold War Germanys (I.B.Tauris, 2008)