Vietnam: A Book of Changes [Hardcover]

Mitch Epstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 17, 1996

A photographer's compelling and poetic odyssey through modern-day Vietnam.

Mitch Epstein's evocative pictures reveal a complex Vietnam that few Americans have ever seen.This is not a document about the war; nor is it the pastoral idyll other photographers have portrayed. Vietnam, through Epstein's eyes, is a sometimes disturbing and sometimes sublime palimpsest.

Vietnam: A Book of Changes interprets a culture and landscape largely cut off from the West for the last thirty years, and now open to a market economy and a new relationship to America. The photographs are suffused with the rawness of Vietnamese life lived on the economic and political edge. Under the layer of friendship lies the tension of politics; under beauty lies violence; under the stark faces of remote villagers is the entrepreneurial momentum drawing them to the city; and under the remnants of war is an artistic bohemia grappling with new freedoms and continued censorship.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

After many years in the spotlight, Vietnam kind of disappeared for a while; it was a pariah in American eyes for a long time after the war there ended, and the Communist government was inward-looking. But in the last few years, the country has reopened itself to the world, and now America is interested again. Epstein's photographs, all taken since 1992, record a Vietnam that still bears the marks of savage war. Rusting American tanks, planes, bombs and war detritus survive, and there are even the faded architectural glories of the French colonial empire that preceded American involvement. But Vietnam's own ancient Asian culture survives, apparent still despite the recent incursions of modern Western consumer culture. This is travel photography with an eye to the lessons of history, redolent of a bittersweet hope in the future.

From Publishers Weekly

Epstein's remarkable photo-essay, based on six trips to Vietnam between 1992 and 1995, reveals a land that few tourists or armchair travelers will ever glimpse. These impromptu yet powerful pictures display his admiration for the Vietnamese people's energy, depth, resourcefulness and dignity in the face of repression and stark poverty. He portrays a claustrophobic society, largely shut off from the world for the last 30 years, now becoming increasingly capitalistic under a dictatorial communist regime while still recovering from the devastation of war. Photos of crumbling houses, an itinerant veteran beggar, imported urinals, graffiti, a roasted dog's head, belie the official image of a communist idyll. Epstein, a cinematographer and production designer for Salaam Bombay! and Mississippi Masala, includes a bittersweet personal essay that begins only on page 152, following the color photography?an unusual format device that adds to the book's visceral impact.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 186 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (November 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393040275
• ISBN-13: 978-0393040272
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,855,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a luminous, searching cross-section of Vietnam today, September 5, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Vietnam: A Book of Changes (Hardcover)

Superb. Among the many books of pictures of Vietnam, this one stands out as simply smarter, prettier, more disturbing and deeper than the rest. Epstein works with images like a novelist or composer, stringing them together in long symphonic wavelike movements. The photos--of daily life deep within the country-are beautiful and upsetting at the same time. Almost impossibly, Epstein allows the complicity of the American involvement in Vietnam into the picture frame, and comments subtly, and at the same time, on his own presence as picture taker, while never losing his visual perfect pitch. A must buy for anyone interested in photography, or our legacy in Vietnam

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful atmosphere, November 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Vietnam: A Book of Changes (Hardcover)

The pictures in this book tell a wonderful story of a country in progress and still recovering from years and years of hardship....
Epstein caught the soul of vietnam with this wonderful collection of photo's....

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Images, April 22, 2009

By 

Thomas J. Wu "TJ Wu" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vietnam: A Book of Changes (Hardcover)

With obvious reason that Mr. Epstein is a master in capturing beautiful images in a place when there are few foreign journalists are welcome at that time. Put thing in perspective, how time has changed and a book like this will be viewed as reference.