A World History of Photography [Hardcover]

Naomi Rosenblum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1984

Encompasses the entire range of the photographic medium, from the camera lucida to up-to-date computer technology, and from Europe and the Americas to the Far East. The text investigates all aspects of photography - aesthetic, documentary, commercial and technical - while placing it in historical context. It includes three technical sections with detailed information about equipment and processes. This edition also updates important new international work from the 1980s and 1990s.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

From the camera lucida to the latest in digital image making and computer manipulation, photographic technology has dramatically changed throughout its nearly 200-year history, as succinctly explained and powerfully illustrated in A World History of Photography. Thanks to the unique immediacy with which photography captures perspective and history, the popularity and use of the camera spread rapidly around the globe. Today, photography is ubiquitous: from newspapers and fashion magazines to billboards and the film industry, cultures worldwide have embraced this malleable artistic medium for a limitless variety of purposes.

Naomi Rosenblum's classic text investigates all aspects of photography--aesthetic, documentary, commercial, and technical--while placing photos in their historical context. Included among the more than 800 photographs by men and women are both little-known and celebrated masterpieces, arranged in stimulating juxtapositions that illuminate their visual power. Authoritative and unbiased, Rosenblum's chronicle of photography both chronologically and thematically traces the evolution of this still-young art form. Exploring the diverse roles that photography has played in the communication of ideas, Rosenblum devotes special attention to topics such as portraiture, documentation, advertising, and photojournalism, and to the camera as a means of personal artistic expression. The revised fourth edition includes updates on technical advances as well as a new chapter on contemporary photographers. Armed with the expressive vigor of its images, this thorough and accessible volume will appeal to all. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Naomi Rosenblum, an independent curator and scholar who has written many articles and lectured extensively on a range of subjects in photography, first published A World History of Photography in 1984. The book has since been translated into French, Japanese, Polish, and Chinese, and it has been updated and expanded through many editions. Rosenblum is also the author of A History of WomenPhotographers. She lives in Long Island City, New York. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 671 pages
• Publisher: Abbeville Press; 1st edition (1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0896594386
• ISBN-13: 978-0896594388
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 9.1 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,821,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars my basic source book, February 9, 2002

By 

lorraine anne davis (zurich, switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A World History of Photography (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

I am the Curator of the Pfeifer Collection of Classical American Photography in Zürich, Switzerland and previously to this, the Assistant Director of the Paul Strand Archive. I have been writing about photography since 1985. Since it was published, I have used Rosenblum's book extensively. It is the first source book I go to when doing my research.

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fourth (2007) Edition Only Somewhat Improved from Third (1997) Edition, April 20, 2008

By 

ReviewerWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: World History of Photography (Hardcover)

The 3rd edition of this book, published in 1997, is a popular textbook for college art history classes and is held by many libraries. The hardcover 4th edition published in 2007, whose ISBN-13 is 9780789209467, has a similar dust jacket and is also 9"x12" (but has 712 pages, as opposed to the previous edition's 695). Both editions are visually attractive and informative.

Overall, the 4th edition improves upon the 3rd only somewhat. The chapter numbers and names, and the titles of the interspersed sections on notable topics and technical histories, are unchanged. I leafed through the 3rd and 4th editions, and chapters 1-10 have no significant differences. In other words, recent trends and findings in the history of photography prior to 1950 have been omitted. I would have liked to see at least mention of more old photobooks (e.g., Moi Ver's 1931 "Paris," Brodovitch's 1945 "Ballet," and Heisler & Styrsky's 1945 "On the Needles of These Days"), interest in which has increased this decade, and a sentence or two on the 2002 discovery of an 1825 photo by Niepce.

Chapters 11 ("Photography Since 1950: The Straight Image" and 12 ("Photography Since 1950: Manipulations and Color") on pages 516-629 were only moderately revised compared with the 1997 edition. I count 2 photos dropped from the old edition and 11 new photos. Changes in the text include addition of some female, non-Western, and contemporary male photographers; more material on "Digital Imaging" on pages 620-625; and a couple new paragraphs on "The Market for Photographs" on page 625.

The current edition has slightly revised text on pages 630-631 about "Digital Image-Making," a new afterword on pages 639-641, an updated time line on pages 655-660, a glossary on pages 661-665 now with terms related to digital imaging, and references as recent as 2007 on pages 666-683.

I could find only a few mistakes (e.g., "Todd" instead of "Tod" Papageorge on page 527, "Miquel" instead of "Miguel" Rio Branco on page 547, and limitations of definitions of "burning" and "dodging" on pages 661-2 to only digital techniques). The numbering of figures on pages 630-640 is incorrect (should be 816-828, not 808-819 and 816). A number of major 20th-century photographers (e.g., Ralph Gibson, Jeff Wall, and Francesca Woodman) were excluded, which is unfortunate. There is no mention of "paparazzi" or "Photoshop" (in specific, not just the general discussion of software on page 631); for better or for worse, both of these have influenced the history of photography.

In summary, if you have the 3rd edition, there's little reason to obtain this one. If you don't have the 3rd edition, or if you have the 3rd but want some updates in the material on the 1950s and beyond, buy this book from Amazon.com!

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb! by fermed, April 13, 2001

By 

Fernando Melendez "fermed" (San Diego, California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A World History of Photography (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

I have owned a copy of this book for several years and it still gets used with the frequency it deserves. I confess having been quite ignorant about the history of photography: it seemed the type of record I would not be particularly interested in (old photos are too old, and new ones are in the daily paper); but my attempt to read Susan Sontag's book ON PHOTOGRAPHY demanded precisely the nearby presence of a reference such as this one, and so I came to own my copy. The book is very thorough, deeply scholarly, and broadly based. If it has to do with the record of photography as culture it is likely to be found here. I treasure it.