Cubism, often considered to be the seminal art movement of the twentieth century, initiated a pictorial revolution through its radical approach to imagemaking, invention of the new media of collage and sculptural assemblage, and evolution towards pure abstraction. This comprehensive and fresh critical re-exmination of Cubism in its wider context, social, cultural, political, scientific and philosophical, introduces and re-frames the movement, covering the full range of art and artists from the movement's advent in 1908 through the First World War.