Work: The World in Photographs (National Geographic Collectors Series) - Hardcover

Protzman, Ferdinand

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1426203012 ISBN 13: 9781426203015

Publisher: National Geographic, 2008

Synopsis

National Geographic is pleased to present our new Collectors Series. Each volume is a fresh presentation of one of our world-famous photography books. Our first volume, Work, showcases this most universal human pastime through images culled from National Geographic’s vast photographic archive as well as other important collections. This fascinating, wide-ranging volume presents a wonderfully varied group portrait of people at work in great cities and tiny villages; in 19th-century China and 21st-century New York; in fields, factories, food carts, four-star restaurants, and just about everywhere else we earn our keep. Here are cowboys and clowns, shepherds and shopkeepers, street musicians and artists’ models all plying their assorted trades; on one page a professional quarterback fires off a pass as the crowd cheers him on, on the next a lone fisherman casts his net in the silent solitude of a Pacific lagoon, and on the next a nomadic tribesman erects a yurt on the Mongolian plain.

From the glamour of a Parisian fashion show to the grit of an African diamond mine, there are countless ways to make a living. Work illuminates scores of them offering revealing glimpses into various eras and cultures and engaging the reader with entertaining text and informative captions.

With a wonderful mix of the utterly unexpected and the instantly familiar, this vivid panorama takes an essential human activity and shows us myriad ways in which work is at once universal and delightfully, unforgettably unique.

About this title

About the Author

Ferdinand Protzman is an award-winning writer, culture critic, and contributing editor to Art News magazine. He is the author of Landscape: Photographs of Time and Place (2003), Wide Angle: National Geographic Greatest Places (2005) and Love (2008). His essays, reviews, and features have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, and The Harvard Review.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–The enormous variety of things that people do for survival and sustenance is impressively represented in this book. Neither doctor nor lawyer is included, and only a small number of white-collar jobs make the cut. Instead, readers see clover collectors in Yemen, bootblacks in Portugal, ice fishermen in Russia, coal miners in West Virginia, and salt miners in Ukraine. The volume is arranged in geographic sections: Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Americas, and Islands. Interspersed among them are three thematic portfolios: agriculture, extraction (mining), and manufacturing. Protzman contributes engaging and helpful introductions to each geographic section, as well as brief notes introducing the thematic portfolios. With few exceptions the photos are captivating and of high technical quality. Most were taken within the past 20 years, although some are historical, including a few early-20th-century images by Lewis Hine. Many of the images display poverty, hardship, and oppression (especially of children). A few are whimsical, including a workhorse keeping cool in Spain with the aid of a tiny umbrella. The message that work can be tedious and dangerous, as well as rewarding and enjoyable, is thoroughly established.–Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA
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About this edition

• Publisher: National Geographic
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1426203012
• ISBN 13: 9781426203015
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352