Dada developed in distinct periods and locations, providing the structure of the book. From Europe and New York during the First World War it spread to Eastern Europe and Japan in the 1920s. Its re-emergence as Neo-Dada in the 1950s and influence on Fluxus in the 1960s was linked to emigres such as Marcel Duchamp and Hans Richter. Survey: International Dada expert Rudolf Kuenzli surveys Dada in its historical context and examines its significant impact and resonance in art and culture today. Linking visual art, performance and literature, this is a fresh treatement of Dada as the Dadaists saw it. A reassessment of one of the twentieth century's most revolutionary movements in the arts, Kuenzli's clear style is accessible to the scholar and the general reader.

Works: Each image is accompanied by an extended caption. The book is organized chronologically and geographically around major explosions of Dada activity. From its inception in Zurich during the First World War, we follow Dada to New York, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, Paris, Central and Eastern Europe, and Japan, finally looking at Neo-Dada. It is a roll-call of the avant-garde: Hugo Ball at the Cabaret Voltaire, Jean Arp's Automatic Drawing; Marcel Duchamp's readymades and Man Ray's assemblages; Francis Picabia's paintings linking machine and human form; collage with political comment from Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Hoch; Kurt Schwitter's all-encompassing concept of Merz; Max Ernst; from the East, the graphics of Lajos Kassak and El Lissitzky; Okada Tatsuo's constructions and fireworks attached to the cover of Mavo magazine. A look at Neo- Dada includes Robert Rauschenberg's "Erased de Kooning" and the Happenings of Hi Red Center. Documents include a comprehensive collection of original Dada writings, researched at the International Dada Archive and sourced from around the world. Poetry, manifestos and statements are presented together with letters between Tristan Tzara and Marcel Duchamp; Beatrice Wood describes 'The Richard Mutt Case’ (the first exhibition of a urinal) to her readers of The Blind Man in 1917; and in recent interviews artists such as Allan Kaprow and Arman relate their Dada inheritance.