Reading American Photographs: Images As History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans

"Brilliantly elucidates how an informed cultural historian sees and interprets American images through the camera's eye." --Daniel Aaron, Harvard

"Alan Trachtenberg's Reading American Photographs gives fresh and fascinating insights into the household names of phototgraphic history." --Cornell Capa

"A splendid book [written with] learning and intellectual passion . . . thoroughly gratifying." --Alfred Kazin

"This is a must read for those interested in culture and politics. He brilliantly interprets the past for thepresent." --Wanda M. Corn, Standford University

"As Mr. Trachtenberg concludes, 'It is not so much a new but a clarifying light American photographs shed upon American relaity.' That light, as he has richly demonstrated, now illuminates our past in inescapable and powerful ways." --Williams S. McFeely, The New York Times