Booklist
Published to coincide with an exhibition that will visit 10 sites between January 2002 and November 2004, this glorious book presents 200 black-and-white photographs culled from the enormous New York Times archives. Here are the 1950s, with all their splendor, excitement, tragedy, humor, and sadness. Here's the aftermath of a department-store fire; the construction of an overpass; Richard Nixon in Ecuador; the April 27, 1958, Walk for Peace; Lee J. Cobb as Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman; Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in a huddled meeting; American soldiers in Korea; film director Stanley Kubrick on the set of his latest picture; and much, much more. The book is divided into sections ("America in the World"; "War Hot and Cold"; "Mechanization in Command") and contains photographs both famous and rare (there are, for example, few pictures extant of the late Kubrick). In most cases the photos are accompanied by the original newspaper captions, their publication dates, and the photographers' credits. The book also includes several essays explaining how the Times photo archives operates. But, make no mistake, the photos are the raison d'etre here: this is a picture book, and an exemplary one at that, deserving of a place alongside the best work produced by the National Geographic Society and the folks at Time-Life. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
The Cold War, Sputnik, Joseph McCarthy, Fidel Castro, the Rosenbergs, Marilyn Monroe, Rosa Parks, "Father Knows Best," and "Rebel Without a Cause" are just a few of the events, people, and cultural phenomena that marked the decade of the 1950s. This stunning book--a collection of two hundred large-scale duotone photographs of the 1950s culled from the New York Times photo archives-- brings this watershed period to life and examines who and what was important and why. The photographs, which include both famous and lesser-known images, are arranged thematically, under the headings "America in the World: War Hot and Cold," "Mechanization in Command," "Fame and Infamy," "Growing Up American," and "American Ways of Life." The pictures are accompanied by two major essays that look at the role and development of news photography at the New York Times and the relevance of what pictures were taken and which were published by the paper. A third, shorter essay on "the morgue" is a lively description of the photo archive, telling where and how the photos are stored. Together the photographs and essays shed new light on a decade that is still shadowed by misconceptions and stereotypes.
