THE RECORDING EYE

A photohistorian's approach to more than 100 years of history provides a documentary of decisive moments with 260 photographs (from the Gernsheims' collection of 30,000) and a brief text accompanies and amplifies each picture. From the first photograph (1826) this bears visual witness to all kinds of discoveries and inventions (the first railway, steam carriage, underground, x-ray, penicillin, etc.); to the holocausts of fire, the Tokyo earthquake, the Titanic; to momentous events, marriages, funerals, the congresses of Berlin- or Locarno; and the many wars and revolutions and rebellions which dotted the century (the Crimea, the Indian Mutiny, Boer War, Franco- Prussian, American Civil, Opium, Boxer Rebellion, World War I, etc.). The book closes with Hitler's rise to power, the Spanish Civil War and the prelude to World War II. A graphic cavalcade of events and personages holds its interest for those who would like to view and review the near past through a word and picture presentation. Since the majority of the photographs represent this medium in its infancy, they are naturally less satisfying pictorially than historically.