Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This lively new survey offers fresh insights into 150 years of American photography, placing it in its cultural context for the first time. Orvell examinines this fascinating subject through portraiture and landscape photography, eamily albums and memory, and analyses the particularly 'American' way in which American photographers have viewed the world around them.Combining a clear overview of the changing nature of photographic thinking and practice in this period, with an exploration of key concepts, the result is the first coherent history of American photography, which examines issues such as the nature of photographic exploitation, experimental techniques, the power of the photograph to shock, and whether we should subscribe to the notion of a visual history.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Presenting the Self
• 3 Viewing the Landscape
• 4 Seeing and Believing
• 5 A Photographic Art
• 6 Photography and Society
• 7 Versions of the Self
• 8 Photographing Fictions
• 9 Photography and the Image World
• 10 Conclusion: Post Photography
• Timeline
• Further Reading
• Museums and Websites
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Photography is a profoundly influential medium, as it traverses language barriers, molds perceptions, and shapes human memory. With such capabilities in mind, Orvell (The Real Thing) presents a study of American photography that carefully considers the medium's significance as a self-reflexive mode of discovery and its consequence to historical documentation and national identity. He deftly examines our nation's early mythmaking and contemporary myth-destroying tendencies, our initial exploratory inclinations, and the perennial concern with the connection between photography and truth, particularly in relation to the media. Orvell approaches the subject chronologically but traces, within this linear framework, the thematic and technological complexities distinctive to each period. Throughout, Orvell's helpful sidebars highlight important technological processes, vocabulary, and movements. The conclusion of the book contains a time line of the development and evolution of photography on technological, social, and artistic levels. Also included is a guide to web sites providing further field-specific information. A fantastic survey-length complement to Robert Taft's Photography and the American Scene, which specifically examines photography in the 1800s, this book is recommended for all collections concentrating on photography, cultural studies, and even American history.-Savannah Schroll, formerly with Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Miles Orvell is Professor of English and American studies, with a broad interest in modern American culture. Other publications include 'The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture 1880 - 1940', which was co-winner of the American Studies Association's John Hope Franklin Prize, and his essays and reviews on literature, photography, film, technology, and the arts have appeared in many journals, such as American Art and History of Photography. He is also the Senior Editor of the Encyclopaedia of American Studies, and the Director of American Studies at Temple University.