The Spirit of Family [Hardcover]

Al Gore (Author), Tipper Gore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 12, 2002

An inspiring array of world-class photographs revealing the changing face of the American family

The American family has undergone dramatic changes in the last two generations, as interfaith and interracial marriage, new gender and age configurations, and different roles have created increasingly complex emotional and spiritual bonds. In The Spirit of Family, Al and Tipper Gore chart this evolution in an entirely fresh way, with 260 black-and-white and color images from many of the country's most acclaimed photographers-including Tina Barney, Mitch Epstein, Lee Friedlander, Sally Mann, Mary Ellen Mark, Nicholas Nixon-and from rising stars such as Gerald Cyrus, Arlene Gottfried, and Jennette Williams. The result is a visual narrative that brilliantly illustrates the traditional stages of life and the unique challenges and opportunities facing today's families. The perfect complement to the Gores' equally eye-opening book about family, Joined at the Heart, this astonishing collection of photographs offers a powerful vision of our most essential relationships.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Complemented by a three-page introduction and a smattering of quotes from John Milton, Plato and others, this impressive collection showcases more than 250 photographs of contemporary American families, taken by the likes of Nan Goldin, David LaChapelle, Sally Mann and Nicholas Nixon. The so-called spirit of these images ranges from heartbreaking to smile inducing. Al and Tipper have arranged the photographs by theme (e.g., photos of farming families, families at mealtime, couples reading the paper, parents smoking around children, white children with black nannies, etc.). Without explanations, some are confusing, e.g., two little girls-one white, one black-stand side-by-side in their bathing suits. Are they sisters? Cousins? Friends? Yet this approach allows the more complex work here to maintain its socio-sexual zing. A nervous-looking bride walks through a park with her fiance, while a couple sits on a nearby park bench, kissing. A trio of pudgy adults smiles as they dig into a meal of ribs, corn on the cob and Diet Pepsi. Teens mourn over the casket of a classmate. A laughing woman sprays a young girl with a garden hose. A family of four stands at a busy intersection in Manhattan, underneath a Calvin Klein billboard showing an underwear-clad hunk. The book includes families from all walks of life and potential voting demographics-and it is oddly successful at describing the beauty and awkwardness of family in its current incarnations, including same-sex couples. The ambient tolerance, plus a few less-than-clothed figures, may provoke responses from a variety of camps.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This book begins with an excellent objective-to portray the dramatic changes in the American family over the past two generations-and the Gores did a fine job of selecting and arranging an outstanding collection of photographs. The 260 color and black-and-white images are by some of the finest contemporary photographers in North America, including Sally Mann, Mary Ellen Mark, Tina Barney, Mitch Epstein, Lee Friedlander, and Nicholas Nixon. However, the book consists almost entirely of these loosely strung-together photographs, with only brief, informal comments by the authors buried among the early pages and occasional, distracting snippets of quotes. Not a single photograph is captioned, and the fine photographers are credited only in the small print at the end of the volume. The publisher sees this volume as an excellent complement to the Gores' recent Joined at the Heart, but other than the concept of family, no substantive connection is apparent. Carefully selected and beautifully reproduced, the photographs are nothing short of brilliant. Yet so many questions go unasked and so many issues are not addressed that one is left disappointed. For comprehensive collections.
--Raymond Bial, Parkland Coll. Lib., Champaign, IL
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (November 12, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805068945
• ISBN-13: 978-0805068948
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,257,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very powerful, September 4, 2003

By 

"ldvp2002" (Sacramento) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Spirit of Family (Hardcover)

I despise both the Republican and Democratic party, and I didn't vote for Al Gore in the last presidential electoral farce, but I must admit I was taken aback by the collection of photos he and his wife, Tipper, assembled in this book. Their authorship is little misleading, however, for they're only editors--not photographers--pulling together--with the help of photographers--a vast array of works by numerous skilled and apparently hardworking camera artists and workers.

Few photo books show the diversity of the human project as this one. The Gores dare to include images a gay couple, of an interracial relationship, of the everyday poverty lived throughout the front and backyards of this country--of the old and the young, the sick and the afflicted, the violent and the peace makers, the believers and the doubters, the workers and their children, the faces and bodies of a cultural mosaic that makes up the republic.

The images are rugged, urbane, rural and rustic in tone. They provide a voyeuristic look into the homes of people we can't see on t.v. or People magazine. Some of them are so personal that we wonder what they mean, but others only mirror the human condition--the living and loving, the believing and doubting, the holding ourselves together despite our frayed existence.

These are not wholesome, American pie photos. They break the media codes of slick Hollywood images or stereotypes of family. Seen together, the collection gives off a truer meaning what is family, of how, as the Gores contend, "families are changing." So for me, no one particular photo stands out, even though the individual works of Sylvia Plachy, Nicholas Nixon, Lauren Greenfield, Laura Staus, Eli Reed, and Arlene Gottfried, convey a particular style and depth.

I also particularly like the point the editors make in their introduction, that "America's finest photographers have long believed that the greatest subject for their craft is not wars or the dramatic events of history, but the way people interact with one another--how they touch; how they hold their children in their arms; how they get through the day with all the stress, strains, and joys that life hands them; how one generation relates to the next." This is in part what I call the human project. And what better way to capture it than with photography.
...

15 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth a Thousand Words, December 7, 2002

By 

Elizabeth B. Dickey (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Spirit of Family (Hardcover)

It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this book proves it. The Gores have said they went through fifteen thousand photographs before choosing the ones they've included, and they've come up with some real winners. One of the cleverest, on P.62, shows a baby clutching a bottle against her face while a business-suited man sits on a nearby bed, clutching a cell phone in almost the same position. For emotional impact, I've seldom seen a photograph comparable to one by Alex Webb on P. 182, which shows a mother tending to her baby on a rooftop. In the background is the lower Manhattan skyline,almost blocked out by the smoke and ash of September 11th. Although the book is expensive, this picture and others make it well worth the price.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Spirit of Family, January 4, 2003

By 

Mavis Kelley (Grand Forks, ND United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Spirit of Family (Hardcover)

This is a very moving book. Who would think a picture book could be so telling. The Gores should be congratulated for documenting families is such a creative, insightful way. This book is a keeper!