Customer Reviews

Century

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is an immense photo-retrospective of the last 100 years. I am continually impressed by the choice of pictures; most are new to my eyes, rather than mere reprints of old LIFE pics and such. The commentary, while brief, is poignant and humble. I use many of the photos in my U.S. and World History classes and the students (high school) are captivated by them. One note to bear in mind: this book focuses primarily on European influence around the world and war and its effects. People looking for a cultural/historical study of non-Western people will probably find more useful information elsewhere. That aside, this is a spectacular and intelligently collected volume of photographs, more deserving of a place on the shelf than the coffee table.

This is a wonderful book. I was very pleasently surprised at the quality and scope of the photographs. I have only browsed through it but I'm looking forward to many repeat trips through its pages.

A couple of small problems do not detract from the work as a whole. First, the captions for the pictures are printed in a light gray. This may make it difficult for some people to read. On the other hand, it keeps your attention on the photograph.

Second, some captions are not accurate. For example, a Hubble telescope photo of gas clouds in space claims that our universe (sic) could fit in them 50 times. The writer probably meant "solar system" or "galaxy", but not universe.

Finally, please note that there are many disturbing images in this book. If you have pre-high school age children you may want to supervise their perusal of the book or, at a minimum, be on hand to answer the hard questions that come up.

For a unique historical perspective, never have I viewed a finer book. "Century" prints the pictures we haven't seen 100 times before. And it does so in context. Difficult to put down. Excellent.

I'm amazed to read people commenting that this book is too focused on the struggles of humanity--I rather think it's important to record our darkest hours so that we might learn from them. Nothing could accomplish this more powerfully than the images contained in this masterful book.

I paged through Century with my mouth agape. These incredible pictures made me feel a connection to history I had never felt before. I plan to keep this book around as an important historical reference. When my children ask me what WW II was all about, rather than give them some rambling sermon, I'll pull out this book.

If a picture is worth a thousand words than this book is worth about one million.

This is an amazing book. It is the kind of thing you could indifferently buy for a coffee table, and then find a houseful of people surrounding it until the wee hours. The pictures are nothing short of breathtaking. It is the kind of thing that makes your heart beat faster. And it is an excellent learing tool, too, because no one is aware of every situation chronicled in this book. Don't just browse through it in bookstores (even though it's everywhere); buy it and treasure it. It surely will not disappoint.

This book should be the first document of human progress in the twentieth century put into any prospective time capsules for the new millennium, which, as one reviewer rightly stated, doen't actually start until NEXT year. But hey, at least out of ignorance, we get a work of art this precious a year early!

This is an impressive work. Ten pounds of thought provoking pictures. It is too bad other reviewers here criticize the book for being depressing. Let's see, in the 20th Century there was the Great Depression, two world wars, three significant United Nations actions including Korea and Vietnam, and God only knows how many political assassinations. In many respects it was not a pretty century. However, the good is also shown: art, motion pictures, fashion, technology, and human kindness to one another. Just find a sturdy surface to hold this book, dig in and be prepared to spend many hours engrossed in a wonderful tour of the Century.

I found this book at a museum shop when I was looking for something for my mother, who was born at the beginning of the century. It seemed like the perfect gift, paralleling her life.

I expected to see some of the classic photographs that we know so well - Hitler dancing at the news that Paris was burning, the Spanish Civil War soldier at the moment of death, Dorothea Lange's classic of the Dust Bowl mother... To my great surprise, not one of those was included in the book. I was a little disappointed at first, but then realized that because all the pictures are unfamiliar, and in some cases, depict events we may not have considered newsworthy, this book forces you to turn each page. You can't skip over the images because each one carries information, either in the picture or in the description, that may be new. This is NOT a collection of "the best of LIFE," and, as much as I loved that magazine in its heyday, I'm glad.

The book is organized in what some may consider a quirky way, with wildly divergent images juxtaposed. But there's method in this madness, and as you page through it, you start to see the theme emerge.

The pictures are on blank pages, with no writing at all. The explanations are grouped separately for each section. At first I was frustrated at having to page back and forth between the image and the description, but I quickly came to appreciate the visual impact of a picture - nothing else - on an otherwise blank page.

This is a powerful book, in the images that were included, in the information they convey, and in the care and thoughtfulness that it demands from the "reader."

I strongly recommend this book as a serious gift to someone you care about - or yourself. (Mom, by the way, loved it, but complained that it took up all her spare time for weeks, as she paged through it and studied each image carefully. When she died, I reclaimed it from her house and find myself doing the same thing.)

Tragic but true! Impressive immages of human fall and rise. Although more concentrated on human suffering than joy (that's why 4 not 5 stars), brings only one question to mind: Human race should learn from its history!

The absolutely definitive work of its kind. No other photo-retrospective of the century even comes close. This book is amazing.

No book can cover every facet of the 20th century. Bruce Bernard--to his credit--presents not a biased view, but a coherent and independent vision of the 20th century. Advances? Yes, we may have learned to clone sheep. Yes, we may have put a man on the moon & brought the blessings of Tang to millions. Yes, we may have learned how to make really loud movies with computer animation replacing actors. That still does not change that we haven't learned how to live with one another. That we plowed 6 million Jews into the earth. Or that we have done little to prevent the slaughter & imprisonment of minorities around the world, including in this country. Or that we are ending this century as we began it, with war in the Balkans. No, it is far more important that we have made the world a freer place in which to sell more things. The best of our triumphs pale in comparison to what we have done & are still doing to humanity. I believe that Mr Bernard did not set out to paint a portrait of man's inhumanity to man, but I am afraid that that is the unavoidable lesson & warning one must draw from a reasoned survey of what has happened in the world [& the US is not the world, though most American readers seem to think our nation is of prime importance]. I find CENTURY to be an inspiration: to do better in the 21st century, to remember always the human quotient in every decision facing us. CENTURY is history to learn from.