The Circle of Life: Rituals from the Human Family Album

Photographs capture significant rites of passage such as christenings, weddings, and funerals, from cultures around the globe

YA-- A book about births, initiations and puberty rites, weddings, retirements, and death ceremonies as they are observed and celebrated throughout the world from the most primitive to the most advanced societies. Illustrated with striking full-color photographs by eminent photographers, this large-format book is full of fascinating facts and will be a constant source of wonder and delight to students of anthropology, sociology, and human behavior. A moving paean to the universality of human experience. --Richard Lisker, Fairfax County Pub . Lib . , VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Full-page photographs document rites of passage common in cultures as disparate as those of New Guinea and New Jersey in this disappointingly two-dimensional overview. From Greek Orthodox infant baptisms by water and aboriginal Australian baptisms by smoke through initiation rites of adolescents in an Indonesian tribal community and an East Los Angeles girls' gang, images of such rituals as marriages, childbirth, ordinations and funerals are accompanied by quotes from C. G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, W. B. Yeats and others. Brief paragraphs elucidating origins of the ceremonies depicted add punch to the few photos in which subjects are specifically identified. An introduction by novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez and afterword by naturalist writer Peter Matthiessen expand upon the universality and importance of the rites of transformation for both individuals and societies. Cohen is former director of the Day in the Life series. First serial rights to Life magazine.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The circle of life--birth, initiation, marriage, and death--is chronicled as anthropology and as photographic moment in this big, ambitious book, edited by the director of the popular "Day in the Life" series. Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote the introduction and Peter Matthiessen contributed the afterword. The large doses of corporate funding, 35,000 photo submissions by 400 photographers, and a lengthy list of academic advisors have yielded this book an exhibition, and a serial in the October 1991 issue of Life magazine. In the book, the theme of life passages in diverse cultures is best portrayed when photographs of Third World rituals are positioned next to their Western counterparts. Much will be written and spoken about this big book and the big team that constructed it, whose efforts are reminiscent of Cecil B. DeMille. Thankfully, the simple honesty and reporting of this book's photographs remain its strength. Recommended for academic, museum, public, and school libraries.
-David Bryant, Belleville P.L., N.J.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.