Ian Jeffrey explores the work of sixty-nine of the world's greatest photographers with some thought provoking text about their work. The pages are arranged in a vague history of the medium starting with Fox Talbot and four of his photos over four pages. Some names get more depending on how big their creative contributions were, for instance: Lee Friedlander six; Kertesz and Paul Strand eight; Ben Shahn, Bill Brandt, Cartier-Bresson and Tomatsu Shomei ten; Walker Evans fourteen.

The two great wars in the last century conveniently split the photographers into three sections with a further division created by the FSA photojournalists, who get a wonderful forty pages. Apart from Europeans and Americans the only others who get a look in are three from Japan.

Everyone gets a biography, an analysis of their printed photographs (one to a page) and additional text with a deeper interpretation of the themes in each photographer's work. I think these additional words are one of the strengths of the book. Jeffrey makes you think about the photos in front of you with suggestions which go further than just looking at the composition and texture. `How to read' in the book's title should maybe have been `How to appreciate'.

The 384 photos are well printed (300dpi) on good paper with a simple elegant layout though I found it slightly annoying that the second photo on each spread was too small, usually about a quarter of the size of the main image. There is an index and a bibliography. This listing would have worked better if it was placed with the relevant photographer's entry.

I expect everyone will have a favourite who isn't included (Weegee for me) but overall I thought this was a stimulating overview of photography and the relatively small number of people who created a very accessible art form.