The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence
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"This is a magnificent book. Susie Linfield has a good eye for the photographs and a good head for the politics. And she has the moral strength to look at these images of mutilation, death, and destruction, explain their value, and demand that we look at them, too." - Michael Walzer"
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Since the early days of photography, critics have told us that photos of political violence - of torture, mutilation, and death - are exploitative, deceitful, even pornographic. To look at these images is voyeuristic; to turn away is a gesture of respect. With "The Cruel Radiance", Susie Linfield attacks those ideas head-on, arguing passionately that viewing such photographs - and learning to see the people in them - is an ethically and politically necessary act that connects us to our modern history of violence and probes our capacity for cruelty. Contending with critics from Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht to Susan Sontag and the postmoderns - and analyzing photographs from such events as the Holocaust, China's Cultural Revolution, and recent terrorist acts - Linfield explores the complex connection between photojournalism and the rise of human rights ideals. In the book's concluding section, she examines the indispensable work of Robert Capa, James Nachtwey, and Gilles Peress, and asks how photography has - and should - respond to the increasingly nihilistic trajectory of modern warfare. A bracing and unsettling book, "The Cruel Radiance" convincingly demonstrates that if we hope to alleviate political violence, we must first truly understand it - and to do that, we must begin to look.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book looks at the long and often uncomfortable history humanity has with images of suffering. It's an interesting book form both a visual studies / historical point of view. At it's core it supports the view that however harrowing the images produced by photojournalism are, we should continue to look at them (and ultimately they should continue to be made). It argues against the charges of pornography and exploitation often leveled at images of suffering and suggests we instead attempt to learn something from the images.
The chapters are case studies of sorts based around certain conflicts / events or places (Nazi death camps, China for example) or the work of particular photographers (Robert Capa, James Natchwey).
Overall I found Susie Linfield put together a good argument for the continued looking at images of suffering. It's a harrowing read and a lot of truly shocking images are referred to in the text but not printed. I found some on the internet so I could understand what was being talked about and it really chills the blood. At the end of the day I took a few powerful lessons from the book. Humans are capable of terrible atrocities against fellow humans; we all think we know this but by not engaging with images of these acts that work as evidence we're not truly engaging with the problems shown in them.
It's a valuable book for photographers, journalists & historians alike plus anyone with the general interest to read. It's not something to read before bed though.
The chapters are case studies of sorts based around certain conflicts / events or places (Nazi death camps, China for example) or the work of particular photographers (Robert Capa, James Natchwey).
Overall I found Susie Linfield put together a good argument for the continued looking at images of suffering. It's a harrowing read and a lot of truly shocking images are referred to in the text but not printed. I found some on the internet so I could understand what was being talked about and it really chills the blood. At the end of the day I took a few powerful lessons from the book. Humans are capable of terrible atrocities against fellow humans; we all think we know this but by not engaging with images of these acts that work as evidence we're not truly engaging with the problems shown in them.
It's a valuable book for photographers, journalists & historians alike plus anyone with the general interest to read. It's not something to read before bed though.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Daring to look
3 Jun 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Linfield's book is well done account of photographs which represent things that, usually, we don't want to look at. The author brings into discussion the very ethics of looking, gazing and staring, criticizing opinions that affirm that to look at the pain of others is participate in the intentions of perpetrators of politic crimes, specially against human rights. The principal targets of her critics are Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, Alan Sekula and John Berger, as well as Benjamin and Krakauer. For Linfield, this authors are not essentially wrong, but we should place their writings in perspective and not make gospels of them. In reading this interesting book, we come to know that "to look or not to look" is not merely a question of transcendental ethics, but a political act regarding the suffering of human people. Linfield not only invites us to be daring to look at the pain of others, but also to look into it, its testimonies, its visual existence, and try to make of the gaze a means of amelioration of our chaotic world.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
A painful but GREATLY needed book!
1 Feb 2011
Format:Hardcover
What happens to the victims of genocide, torture and mass murder? Do they just disappear from memory over time or do we have a responsibility to confront their suffering? Is it "pornographic" to display photos of political violence or is it our duty to see them?
If you're in the second group, as I am, this heart-wrenching new book by photography critic Susie Linfield is a MUST read.
WARNING: The subject matter (text and photos) is deeply disturbing and not appropriate for sensitive minds or young people (under age 16).
Almost since the invention of the camera in the early 19th century, photography has been used to capture both the beautiful "nice stuff" and the ugly horrifying stuff. Photos from the American Civil War and the brutal Belgian occupation of the Congo are prime examples. In the 20th century, photos were used both by activists and perpetrators to document the very worst cases of human cruelty -- from the slaughterhouse of Ardennes in World War I to the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the execution rooms of Stalin's Russia. Sadly, this body of evidence keeps growing in our time.
As the book so aptly explains, many art critics of the post-War period (e.g., Susan Sontag) have denounced these photos calling them another form of "victimization" or even "the pornography of mass violence." We shouldn't look at those images, they say, it only makes their suffering worse.
Linfield deftly and completely demolishes that argument, both from an aesthetic standpoint and in terms of basic human morality. She uses real-world examples to demonstrate the vital role that documentary photography has played in exposing political violence over the last 150 years. Moreover, she does so while teaching us about the often difficult intersection of photography, art, journalism, history and human rights activism. Even Mark Twain makes an appearance.
I am not an art critic but I am an historian of sorts. The first chapter -- a discussion of the squabbles among specific art critics -- didn't appeal to me personally. I'd suggest reading the preface and then skipping directly to chapter 2 or 3 where the deeper narrative begins.
As I said in a letter to Linfield after reading her book: "The real value of these photographs is indeed their shock value. This is the world we live in, folks -- let's stop pretending otherwise."
BOTTOM LINE: We have a responsibility to our fellow human beings, especially vulnerable children and other victims of mass violence. The first step is to look that horror directly in the eye and say: "Never again. Never again."
Thank you, Susie Linfield, for writing this amazing work of non-fiction.
If you're in the second group, as I am, this heart-wrenching new book by photography critic Susie Linfield is a MUST read.
WARNING: The subject matter (text and photos) is deeply disturbing and not appropriate for sensitive minds or young people (under age 16).
Almost since the invention of the camera in the early 19th century, photography has been used to capture both the beautiful "nice stuff" and the ugly horrifying stuff. Photos from the American Civil War and the brutal Belgian occupation of the Congo are prime examples. In the 20th century, photos were used both by activists and perpetrators to document the very worst cases of human cruelty -- from the slaughterhouse of Ardennes in World War I to the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the execution rooms of Stalin's Russia. Sadly, this body of evidence keeps growing in our time.
As the book so aptly explains, many art critics of the post-War period (e.g., Susan Sontag) have denounced these photos calling them another form of "victimization" or even "the pornography of mass violence." We shouldn't look at those images, they say, it only makes their suffering worse.
Linfield deftly and completely demolishes that argument, both from an aesthetic standpoint and in terms of basic human morality. She uses real-world examples to demonstrate the vital role that documentary photography has played in exposing political violence over the last 150 years. Moreover, she does so while teaching us about the often difficult intersection of photography, art, journalism, history and human rights activism. Even Mark Twain makes an appearance.
I am not an art critic but I am an historian of sorts. The first chapter -- a discussion of the squabbles among specific art critics -- didn't appeal to me personally. I'd suggest reading the preface and then skipping directly to chapter 2 or 3 where the deeper narrative begins.
As I said in a letter to Linfield after reading her book: "The real value of these photographs is indeed their shock value. This is the world we live in, folks -- let's stop pretending otherwise."
BOTTOM LINE: We have a responsibility to our fellow human beings, especially vulnerable children and other victims of mass violence. The first step is to look that horror directly in the eye and say: "Never again. Never again."
Thank you, Susie Linfield, for writing this amazing work of non-fiction.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Wonderful!
14 Dec 2010
Format:Hardcover
The Cruel Radiance is a beautifully written book and an important contribution to the history of photography. Linfield is a serious thinker whose analyses of photography and photojournalism gets at the hard political questions of our time.
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