The Family Of Man Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Family Of Man
Book Review: Most wonderful wonderful and yet again wonderful
Summary: 5 Stars
First time I saw the pictures collected by Edward Steichen was in the permanent museum of the exhibition, Clervaux in Luxembourg.I was keeped almost in silence from entering to exiting and the message of the pictures was striking to me then - and 15 years later it still is.
This is a collection of pictures from all the world, picked between Thousands to be the best pictures to describe the family of man as we ALL are. No matter of colour, religion, origin or political believe we are all sons, fathers, lovers, hungry, thirsty, at times fearful and at times playful - WE ARE ALL ALIKE!
This message is as important now as it was in the 50` and looking at extreemist and the war of terror, you can only wonder how come we have learned nothing in 50 years.
The book brings me back to Clervaux and the thoughts about life, and each time I stop at a different picture or text, that captures the essence of where I am at that time of life. The book is universal not only to man but also to moods.
However happy I am to own the book it is nothing compared with the exhibition in Luxembourg. I can only say that I returned and will return again, and for the full experience of these pictures I will recommend it to all.
Book Review: My satisfaction with "Pass_it_on_Books.
Summary: 4 Stars
I was very happy with the end result of this purchase. The person I dealt with was honest and straight forward. The book arrived promptly.
I would buy from this source again without hesitation.
Book Review: Note that all (but one) customer reviews are 5 stars!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is simply the best collections of photographs that I have ever seen. The book dates from the 50's, but the subject matter... humans... are the same today. Buy this for yourself, of as a special gift for a special person, and you'll not regret it. (I only wish it were still published in hard cover)Book Review: Perhaps the best photographic book ever published
Summary: 5 Stars
I first found this book at Foyle's in London, about 35 years ago, and it struck me. Since then, I bought five copies of the Family of Man, but no one remained in my home, because ever I felt the need to give this book to someone I loved or trusted.
What is making this book so precious to me?
First the idea itself of collecting pictures from the whole world (remember, when Steichen launched his project, the Cold War and the related hysteria was at its peak). This to demonstrate that all the human beings have to pass through the same events in their life: birth, growth, education, emotions, work, love, children, reflection, death. This apparently trivial concept leads to a conclusion by far less trivial: we all do belong to one family, our species, the humans (by the way, this thinking had not so great success in the past, nor the present seems to be more benevolent).
The Family of Man is exactly the visual demonstration of such a concept, by comparing the same events as viewed from different geographic and cultural perspectives, by means of photos from renowned or unknown photographers (of course, the pictures from the US are prevailing in numbers for logistics and statistical reasons: it was by far more simple for an US photographer to even simply receive the news of the Steichen project than for a photographer in Rwanda or in the USSR).
Steichen and his assistants made an impressive selection, shortlisting 503 pictures from the over 2 million they received. By the way, Steichen was a photographer, and his selection also considered the aesthetic side of the question: most of the pictures selected simply are wonderful.
The result is this book. I think no one on this planet can miss it, because The Family of Man is representative of a large part of our culture and on our very nature.
To give an example, in my opinion this book is at the same emotional and rational level as Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Divine Comedy, Melville's Moby Dick, primo Levi's If this is a Man, or the ancient Greek lyrics, to quote some comparisons.
I hope it will continue to be published; we, the humans, desperately need it.
Book Review: Sine qua non...
Summary: 5 Stars
Latin words, which should be used most judiciously. An essential book, even THE essential book, not just of photography, but in the sense of any vehicle which conveys the fundamental truths of the human condition. It is one of those rare "life-time" books, that if you are truly blessed, you discover in your youth, and savor and reflect on its images over a lifetime. (as some other reviewers at Amazon have, including this one.)
After the horrors of the Second World War, Edward Steichen was inspired to search through thousands and thousands of photos, and distilled this search into 503 photos, taken in 68 countries, whose theme was the universality of humankind, starting with "when I was just a twinkle in my father's (mother's?) eye, through marriage, birth, childhood, work, joy, family, dance, tragedy, and it ends, coming full circle, in one of the most perfect photos ever made, carefully composed by someone who understood the horrors of war all too well, W. Eugene Smith, who was badly wounded in WW II. It was his very first photo he composed upon recovery, taken as two small children emerge from the woods, walking upwards, into the light.
Equally impressive are the epigraphs that Steichen chose for his collections, ones that have resonated over the years, starting with the "and yes I said yes I will yes" of James Joyce, which led me to Ulysses, to the "If I did not work, these worlds would perish." of the Bhagavad-Gita, the "land is a mother that never dies" of the Maori, and "... I am alone with the beating of my heart..." by Lui Chi, and so many others. And the admonition of Bertrand Russell is as valid today, though far less thought of, than during the days of the Cold War, and it rightly was reserved for an entire page: "... the best authorities are unanimous in saying that war with hydrogen bombs is quite likely to put an end to the human race ... there will be universal death--suddenly only for a fortunate minority. But for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration..."
Each of the photos can be observed and appreciated again and again. A few have been popularized in other settings, such as the woman and man hugging, with the train in the background, which was the cover of Richard Ford's "Women with Men." When I was in the Jewish cemetery in Prague, with the heaped and twisted tombstones, I thought of the boy standing in a similar cemetery in France, a sense of bewilderment on his face. There is the wonderful juxtaposition of extended families, one taken in Bechuanaland, the other in the USA. There is a photo of a black American man and woman, she lying on the bed, he sitting, and you just know they are discussing their economic troubles. And all the pictures take by photographers of the Farm Security Administration during the last Depression, each so moving, one of a man turned against the crowd, leaning on a fence, with a cup between his arms. Of all of them though, it is the one by Smith, of the children walking into the light, with a sense of exploration, that I tried to emulate, with my own children, at an old station along the Hijaz Railway, in 1989, alas, far less successfully.
I think one would have to be particularly mean-spirited or obtuse to give this book any less than a 5-star rating, and so far, only one has. As the Sioux Indian epigraph has it: "Behold this and always love it! It is very sacred, and you must treat it as such..."