Customer Reviews

Inferno

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There are no words to describe this book. But as this is a review, I'll have to use them so I'll try. Watching these photo's for me is a physical experience. My heart starts to pound and the hairs in my neck stand on end. Reading about the atrocities that happen in the world, seeing documentaries, can't compare to James Nachtwey's work, the photo's are that powerful. James Nachtwey succeeds in making the people who read the book witnesses also. So that we can never again say that we didn't know this was happening. And by making us witnesses, he obliges us not to turn our backs to the Inferno that too many parts of the world still are. But however shocking these photo's are, love and compassion also speak through them. Love for human beings,love for the dignity the nameless persons in these pictures continue to posess in the eyes of James Nachtwey and therefore also in the eyes of the reader.This book reached out and touched me deeply. It made me feel connected to those nameless people, who speak so loudly in these photographs. And however deeply angry I am that the world is still such a cruel place for so many of us humans, the anger doesnt make me feel powerless. But hopeful that I am not the only one who feels this connection and that if enough people do feel the same, we as human beings can stop these things from happening. This book empowers us and it made a difference to me in a profound way. Thank you, James Nachtwey.

If you have the courage to look at these photos then you have the courage to say we've learned nothing from history, all the countless books and films and discussions,seminars and the millions in erecting museums have meant nothing. Why? It seems we don't care if children are hacked to death,or we allow whole nations of people to starve,or be tortured, to withstand humiliation being the victims of the new globalization schemes of the world's power brokers.

Nachtwey allows his truthful images to speak for themselves,from the barren lands,the forsaken lands of the world that god has forgotten about.Somalia,Sudan,Rwanda,India,Bosnia,Chechyna,but it really doesn't matter where this occurs, the fact that it does right now, everyday. On artistic terms as others here have said these photos transcend the artistic frame, and given a forever deeper meaning to what art can express of the human spirit. These images also speak of the past, asking the pathetic question where have we come, or does anyone care.

These exquisitely beautiful and painful photographs bear witness to human suffering many of us otherwise might not see. Nachtwey has said it is his responsibility to record these images, and show the world. It is our responsibility as mindful beings to engage with them. This book will broaden your world and invite you to consider your connection to all who inhabit it. To view it is nothing short of a spiritual act.

Like many other reviewers, I think this collection of photos is beyond words.

It may sound cliche to say this book brings out emotions inside you that have been hidden or you never knew existed, but it is true.

I heard about this book and had seen a few of the images from it in a TIME issue from sometime ago. I found a copy and looked through it.....

I could not stop and finally took the copy and bought it...

It had seared itself into my mind and I needed to own a copy because I could not ever let myself forget that the images inside this book are real and to forget they exist or happen would be like losing part of my humanity.

Highly Recommended!!!

There's little to say about this book other than it is a monumental masterpiece! Nachtwey's photographes literally jump from the pages of "Inferno" and into the soul of the reader. They speak to the horrors that human beings convey upon one another while, at the same time, they reveal the unimpeachable dedication of one man (Nachtwey) to ending such atrocities. This is a book that will out live us all. Hopefully, it will appear in college courses 100 years from now as a testament to humanity's past, not its present condition. This book is highly recommended!

I have only but seen a few of the pictures yet my heart is hardened with sorrow and grief. Thinking it could have been me, wondering why it was not me. My tears stream down my face knowing there is little I can do. But the pictures are too hard to ignore...yet I see hope. James has taken a great step to help heal their wounds....but it is time we too took a part to help lessen their pain. Because if it were you and me.....we would only hope that they will hear our cries and share in our pain. For no man is worth living like that.

I have never felt compelled to write a review before but having, a few hours ago, looked at each photograph in this book in our local bookstore, and still consumed with the images I saw, I am writing to tell you that it is impossible to view these photographs without being viscerally seared. While we all know of these horrors their sheer magnitude renders them hard to assimilate: it is therefore generally easier and so much more comfortable to forget about them as people do with the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the killing fields of Cambodia and so on. Each photograph in this book shows a heart-breaking human tragedy that completely personalises the horror and thereby forces us to become emotionally involved with those who suffer. This book should be in every public library.

Every rare once in a while you see or read something so powerful that you feel not just emotionally touched, but physically as well.

This book left me feeling like someone hit me in the chest.

I find that the words "a terrible beauty" sum up this masterpiece by James Nachtwey. These pictures deeply affected me beyond the written word. Sometimes a simple picture can portray so much. As a student of economic and international relations these images are what keeps me going, I want to be the idealist that believes that I can make a change too. Every time I see Nachtwey's images I can feel his appeal to the reader to make a difference or at the very least to be aware of global issues. People get so caught up in their own pain that one forgets the harsh reality imposed upon others in countries ravaged by war, ethnic genocide and famine. The picture plate of the skeletal man crawling on his hands and knees left a deep impact on me as well as the plate of the Rwandan man ravaged and violated by a machete from his own people. Indeed, as the Italian poet Dante described in "Inferno" these images describe the nine cirlces of hell.

With this book/pictorial, it becomes quite clear, that yes indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words or more.... Each picture means more than any news report or article you've ever read... You see the evil in the world with a clarity rarely shown in few other works of media... When you look at these pictures, tears of anguish, tears of a simmering anger begin to well in your eyes... the question we all must ask ourselves, "How can we let this happen? and why does it happen?" No one should ever suffer like those people suffer in this book, and it is heartbreaking and disheartning to realize that so many Americans and others don't really give a darn enough to stand up and do something...