- Hardcover: 1120 pages
- Publisher: Phaidon Press Ltd; 1st Edition edition (Sep 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0714838489
- ISBN-13: 978-0714838489
- Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 16 x 3.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 335,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The 20th century has, more than any other period in history, forced those who lived through it to become brutally aware of their times. The huge impact of photography, with its permutations and manipulations, has created incredible images of human hope and suffering. Inured as we are to the sights of our age, anyone who leafs through the astonishing chronicle that is Bruce Bernard's Century cannot fail to be impressed and moved by this vast visual document of the last 100 years. Weighing 6kg and containing 1,100 black-and-white and colour photographs, Bernard's 30 years' experience as a picture editor with the Sunday Times Magazine have resulted in this significant document of human history. Divided into six sections--"1899-1914 High Hopes and Recklessness"; "1914-33 Self-Inflicted Wounds Remain Infected"; "1933-45 Rise and Fall of the Unspeakable";"1945-65 Atomic Truce Walks a Tightrope"; "1965-85 Vietnam to the Moon to Soviet Collapse" and "1986-99 Chaos and Hope on a Burdened Planet"--with accompanying text and quotations, Century displays an average of 10 images for each year, from the banal to the brilliant. And so in 1921 we can witness Claude Monet overseeing his glorious water-lily gardens next to an image of starving children in the Russian famine that followed the end of World War I; the young Princess Elizabeth walking her corgi in London's Hyde Park in 1934 while the facing page shows the moment of King Alexander I's assassination in Marseilles. American GIs laugh with girls on a German beach in 1946, a couple of pages on from the recently revealed horrors of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Three decades later, and 1977 brings us the Sex Pistols in concert at the advent of punk rock, while anti-apartheid leader Steve Biko lies murdered by police in his South African cell. By turns harrowing and humorous, Century is a magnificent photographic testament to 100 years of human advancement, futility, acts of heroism and episodes of unspeakable cruelty. Ending on a note of hope with a still from a 1999 German production of Beethoven's opera Fidelio,a triumph of goodness over evil, it is hard to erase the preceding images of refugees fleeing Kosovo in the same month and the same year, history's hour of darkness come round once more. --Catherine Taylor
Product Description
A visual history of the 20th century, the photographs in this volume cover events which range from the hard history of politics to new inventions, the arts, society and fashion. The images have been drawn from international agencies such as Life, Magnum, Picture Post and Stern. The book is divided into six chronological sections corresponding to significant historical moments. Each section opens with a short historical overview which introduces the main concerns during the period covered. There is also a selection of quotations which capture the flavour of the period covered. There are extended captions at the end of each section providing historical information about each photograph.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I was given this book for Xmas, and spent the 5 hours after unwrapping sitting and reading it. It shows the past century in pictures in chronological order. Each picture has a short caption next to it, and at the end of each chapter there's a summary, giving a fuller description of events surrounding each picture. Unlike many other historical picture books, that show the same pictures again and again, Bruce Bernard has managed to put together a collection of very rarely (if ever) seen photos. I've since read through the book with friends and we all agreed that history lessons would have been far more interesting and tangible with this book. It's only drawback is it's size, which is also one of it's strenghts, it weighs over a stone! (6kg). I truly hope this is published on CD-ROM, and also that schools add it to their curriculum.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
From simple posed black and white photographs of the early 1900s to the spontaneously captured colour image of the late 1990s. This is a book not to be missed. The compiler has obviously gone out of his way to find photographs that are of ordinary people doing extraordinary things and therefore not just using the celebrity factor and the overused well known images of the 20th Century.
I doubt whether most of us have seen more than 10 of these photographs which illustrates the massive amount of research that must have been undertaken to produce this book. It would have been too easy to compile a book with all the obvious images of the 20th Century something the compiler has definitely not done.
The photographs invariably invoke more questions than answers as I struggle to empathise with the people in the picture and their circumstances.
I recommend this book wholeheartedly and believe every home should have one.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I was given this book as a gift on the eve of the new millennium and could not not have thought of a more fitting reminder. You cannot absorb it in a day, a week or even a month - it is a reference point to return to over and over again - a photographic account of the last century- both at its best and at its worst. I am amazed by some of the reviews on this page - some express disappointment and horror at the graphic and sometimes shocking contents portrayed and I was stunned that they reacted this way - after all, this is history (warts and all) in the making - and it is our own..! It is only through reminding and shocking people of the darker side of human nature , and the mistakes we are capable of , that we can try to learn in the future - 'lest we forget'........isn't that how the saying goes? To do otherwise is an insult.
There are also records of magnificent human achievements in this book - it is not all doom and gloom. For those who are uncomfortable with the truth of the pictures captured and preserved in this account I would suggest they read Barbara Cartland in future - all pink and fluffy round the edges.
I however, prefer reality , even if it hard to deal with it - It is my intention that this book remain a part of my family long after I have gone - to be passed down the generations - the pictures will outlive me...!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A TRUE MASTERPIECE
Since buying this book for myself, I have bought several copies for friends and family members. I have studied it on many occassions and every time I find something new. Read more
Published on 8 May 2010 by P. J. Earley
Amazing pictures, but not in the right sense
I bought this book mainly from a photographic perspective. There are some truly great photographs, but I tend to agree with the person that awarded this book 1 star, on the basis... Read more
Published on 18 Dec 2006 by Stuart Matthews
What an amazing book
This book is breath taking it has it all, you can look at it for hour and hours. True some images are hard-hitting and perhaps gruesome but that was the last century. Read more
Published on 21 July 2003 by Richard T. Martin
Incredible accounts of the century
This is an incredible book, not only is it gripping and you want to read it cover to cover immediately, taking in all the incredible pictures, but when you read historic novels,... Read more
Published on 9 Sep 2002
They forgot to include the "Hope" to balance the...
The concept for the book is great and I bought two copies, one for me and one for a present. After reading my copy, the second was returned (an Amazon purchase - the only book I... Read more
Published on 13 July 2000
An accurate portrayal of the main themes of the century
I agree with most of the reviewers' ratings of this book, which is a stunning collection of photographs. Read more
Published on 7 Jun 2000
Not for the squeamish or easily depressed!
Although this contains the work of a vast number of actual photographers, the pictures themselves represent a horrifying amount of graphically violent and upsetting subject... Read more
Published on 21 May 2000
The most thought provoking book ever ?
I saw this book promoted at the end of last year and thought that it would be interesting book to scan through but I was totally blown away by the quality of imagery and the story... Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2000
A must have it book
I read the first part of this book last night with my grandmother and my aunt. It sparked some very lively discussion! Read more
Published on 11 Jan 2000
I think this was a terrible present
I bought it for some friends having read the reviews by other customers but without seeing it for myself first (I had it sent to their address). Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2000
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