Inferno (Hardcover)

~ James Nachtwey (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Though he is probably the world's most honored recent war photographer, James Nachtwey calls himself an "antiwar photographer," as the preeminent critic Luc Sante notes in his excellent foreword to Inferno, a landmark collection of 382 war-crime photos. Nachtwey has taken shrapnel and had his hair literally parted by a bullet, but he's never lost his compassionate outrage. The stunning images in this huge-format book--brutally abused Romanian orphans, Rwandan genocide victims, a rat-hunter family of Indian Untouchables barbecuing dinner, skeletal dehydration victims in Sudan, the miserable in Bosnia, Chechnya, Zaire, Somalia, and Kosovo--are excruciating to look at, yet impossible to tear your eyes away from. Nachtwey's art is meant to force us to face unbearable facts. Faces are the key: you can't gaze into the eyes of a Romanian toddler tied to a bed, or wired to a primitive "electromagnetic therapy" device, and not grasp the horror more fully than you would by watching a TV news item or reading a newspaper piece. (The book's text explains each photo's context.)

Inferno is also a masterpiece in strictly aesthetic terms. The power of Nachtwey's images transcends journalism. Bloody handprints on a living-room wall in Kosovo, the ghostly imprint of a Serb victim's vanished body on a floor, a Hutu with crazed eyes displaying the machete gashes he received for opposing the Tutsis' butchery, a howling orphan in a crib, one eye contracted in anger--these are compositions that depend, like Goya's, on the artist's skill as much as the subject's legitimate claim on our conscience.

Nachtwey's photographs make us capable of imagining that it could have happened to us. They are hard to forget, or forgive. --Tim Appelo

Product Description

A document of war and strife during the 1990s, this volume of photographs by the photojournalist James Nachtwey includes dramatic and shocking images of human suffering in Rwanda, Somalia, Romania, Bosnia, Chechnya and India, a well as photographs of the conflict in Kosovo. An essay by the author Luc Sante is included. The book is published to coincide with an exhibition of Nachtwey's work at the International Centre of Photography, New York.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 460 pages
• Publisher: Phaidon Press (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0714838152
• ISBN-13: 978-0714838151
• Product Dimensions: 15.3 x 11.2 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #127,155 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond words, May 31, 2000

By	Maaike Lammers (The Netherlands) - See all my reviews

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.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars holocaust meant nothing in retrospect, October 20, 2000

By	scarecrow "scarecrow" (Chicago, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book everyone needs to see, March 16, 2000

By	The Rev. Leaf Seligman "leaf1231" (Troy, NH United States) - See all my reviews

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.