Century - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714893501 ISBN 13: 9780714893501

Publisher: Phaidon, 2002

Synopsis

Before even opening this award-winning book, you are struck by the sheer physical presence of Century. With 1,120 pages and 1,072 images, this colossal volume offers an informative, intimate and incisive insight into the twentieth century from the very beginning to the very end. Century is an extensive historical trajectory through the twentieth century, told through an eclectic yet exhaustive sequence of monumental photographic images.

More than any other before it, the twentieth century was one of unforeseeable advances, discoveries and victories as well as unanticipated atrocities and suffering. It was also the first century to have been documented entirely through the lens of the camera. The chronological journey of Century - in a visually extraordinary sequence of images - takes us from the end of Queen Victoria's reign, through the antics of Buster Keaton and the odyssey into outer space and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Assimilated from diverse sources across the world, the photographs are instantly arresting and tirelessly thought-provoking. Selected for their capacity to expose distinctly human stories with the dynamism that drives historical change, the tome combines iconic images with photographs previously unseen, from international political events to highly personal and anonymous vignettes.

Each photograph is substantiated by a brief but thorough historical explanation; every single scene is brought to life by evocative literary and political quotations. Century is as much an historical tour de force as it is an enlightening visual celebration of the past from a vast range of angles.

About this title

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

Review

'Open Century at any point and it is instantly, relentlessly gripping.' (San Francisco Chronicle)

'A complex and suggestive book. It's a triumph, maybe a masterpiece.' (Independent on Sunday)

'Picture editors sometimes possess a startlingly accurate 'photographic memory' and an intuitive divining-rod which leads them through vast archives to the images they need. Bruce Bernard is one of these. I don't know anyone else with either the chutzpah or the qualifications to attempt a book like this. The compiler is both a great showman and a serious chronicler. He retains one's attention and faith right the way through. Century is extraordinary. A wonderbook.' (The Spectator)

'This is a great book. As photographic history, its sweep and grandeur are incomparable. The culmination of the career of our most revered picture editor, Bruce Bernard has produced the monument to photo-journalism he has long had in mind. Certainly every prime minister and sixth-former should have a copy and refer to it every day.' (Literary Review)

'If you want one book that sums up our century in pictures, the one to get is Century.' (Daily Mail)

'A veritable road map of the 20th century's seminal events.' (American Photo)

'Bruce Bernard has unrivalled knowledge and discernment in the field of photography, as well as a firm grasp of the history and culture of the 20th century. Nobody could have done this job better than he and his publishers. This enormous, beautifully produced volume is very good value. The book as a whole gives an impression of an extraordinary century that feels both natural and true.' (The Oldie)

'The heavyweight champ of photo books.' (USA Today)

Edition details

• Publisher: Phaidon
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0714893501
• ISBN 13: 9780714893501
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: Italian