Arms Against Fury: Magnum Photographers in Afghanistan [Hardcover]

Robert Dannin (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: powerHouse Books; First Edition edition (2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500542635
• ISBN-13: 978-0500542637
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Afghanistan Photographs 1955-2001, December 9, 2009

By 

William Garrison Jr. (Bellevue, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Arms Against Fury: Magnum Photographers in Afghanistan (Hardcover)

Over 230 pages of hundreds of photographs taken throughout Afghanistan between 1955-2001. About equally divided between color and black&white photographs. The photos between 1980-2000 look eerily similar, despite the Russians moving in and out, with the Taliban moving in and out, and with the American soldiers arriving in 2001, nothing seems to have changed between these years: so much rubble. As there is little text, this is not an `educational' reference book. This is a collection of photographs taken by many different photographers of different nationalities who traveled through Afghanistan. There are only 2-3 photographs of dead Taliban soldiers, but nothing really gory that should keep it out of some junior high-library (although the color photo of a dead government soldier's bloated face on page 113 isn't for the faint-hearted). Few `battle-action' photos, no photos of the Taliban stoning women. The photograph showing a criminal chained to the prison floor (p. 223) reminded me of similar containment that I had seen in Haiti in 1993, and the photo of a crumbled-up painting of a nude female in the National Art Museum depicted the anti- `avant garde' morals of the Taliban government. Alas, these everyday-life photographs -- although they depict many country and city-street scenes of war amputees, destroyed homes, and impoverished women and children -- cannot capture the heat, the cold, nor the dustiness of the country. Nary a scenic photo anywhere. I had correspondence with the last Afghanistan king back in the early 1960s, I'm sure he would have been extremely saddened with these photographs in seeing how ravaged his country became during the last quarter of the Twentieth Century.