Magnum was founded in 1947 to ensure the free photographic expression of political history throughout the world. In this volume, 17 members of its elite band of professionals present 400 four-color and duotone photographs depicting Afghanistan from the late 1940s to the present. The book is divided into five well-conceived chapters, with the chapter introductions, the captions, and the photographs themselves leaving an overall impression of death, destruction, and hopelessness. Some of the photographs of the dead and injured are quite graphic and disturbing. Dannin (urban anthropology, NYU), who has edited the work of photojournalists for 25 years, here exercises careful editorial control, offering a fairly balanced spread of photographs over five decades and between urban Kabul and the countryside. Recommended for public libraries.
Examines the history of Afghanistan, from the 1950s until the present, showing the struggles of the Afghan people to survive amidst communism, a civil war, and the rise and fall of the Taliban.