Customer Reviews

LIFE: Our Century in Pictures for Young People

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

 

 

Knowing that the photographs would be evocative and interesting, I purchased this book for my nephew. But after reading the captions which accompany many of the photos, I have reconsidered my decision. To start with, the language used in the captions is hardly appropriate for the young reader. No effort seems to have been made by the editors to contextualize, politically or historically, the images selected. Often there is a loose "thematic" arrangement which sets images in opposition without a clear statement of the connections, chronological or otherwise, between them. The captions read as if the editors haphazardly, and hurriedly, chopped up the narrative from the "adult" version of the text to create a text thoughtlessly marketed to younger readers. Worse still is the glaring editorial bias, bordering on jingoism, with which the text treats the Cold War and the former Soviet Union. While I hardly expected the editors at Life magazine to present a balanced narrative about the clash of ideas that defined so much of the last century, I was shocked to see the Soviets repeatedly referred to as "Reds", a term that very few of the children born after the collapse of the Soviet Union would even understand, and in a page dedicated to the McCarthy hearings, Communism was referenced as a "disease" (news to more than one medical professional I am sure) and the young reader is reminded that McCarthy was attacking a very real "communist threat" but lamentably had gone too far.

It is understandable that in a Post-Communist world we can see the projects of the Soviet Union and its allies as failures, and there is no harm in naming them as such, but the anachronistic and, frankly, stupid "slang" used by the writers reflects the degree to which they were NOT creating an educational text, but rather an out-dated propagandistic tract. I would not recommend this book to anyone who wants to foment thoughtful analysis in the minds of the young people they know. A total dud!

I purchased this book to use with Sonlight Core 300, the 20th Century. It is one of the main required texts for the program. I am very glad that I was able to purchase it cheap from a seller, as there is not a lot of information in the book. The pictures are interesting to browse, but I am sure that one could easily complete a study of the 20th century without the book. It's not a bad book, just not a great book.

I think this book is a great book for kids who really would like to learn about Americas past time. It gives you detailed information about are Nation times and the up's and downs. I learned lot from this book and it has a good twist from most books.

I received this book as a gift and was astonished by how great it actually is. It has so many wonderful pictures from the past 100 years and I feel that they explain every picture well enough so you can understand how in that time things were. I would suggest this to not just young people but to everyone so they can too learn more about the last century.

I thought that this was a very goood book and that it has many very neat pictures. I received it as a gift and looked at it all day because the pictures and stories behind them. I think that if you want to learn more about the past century then this is the book for you.