The Cruel Radiance

Photography and Political Violence

Susie Linfield

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Paperback

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English

University of Chicago Press
15 April 2012

Photographic reportage

In The Cruel Radiance, Susie Linfield challenges the idea that photographs of political violence exploit their subjects and pander to the voyeuristic tendencies of their viewers. Instead she argues passionately that looking at such images—and learning to see the people in them—is an ethically and politically necessary act that connects us to our modern history of violence and probes the human capacity for cruelty. Grappling with critics from Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht to Susan Sontag and the postmoderns—and analyzing photographs from such events as the Holocaust, China’s Cultural Revolution, and recent terrorist acts—Linfield explores the complex connection between photojournalism and the rise of human rights ideals. In the book’s concluding section, she examines the indispensable work of Robert Capa, James Nachtwey, and Gilles Peress and asks how photography should respond to the increasingly nihilistic trajectory of modern warfare.

A bracing and unsettling book, The Cruel Radiance convincingly demonstrates that if we hope to alleviate political violence, we must first truly understand it—and to do that, we must begin to look.

By: Susie Linfield
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 23mm, Width: 16mm, Spine: 2mm
Weight: 510g
ISBN: 9780226482514
ISBN 10: 0226482510
Pages: 344
Publication Date: 15 April 2012
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Susie Linfield has been an editor for American Film, the Village Voice, and the Washington Post and has written for a wide range of publications, including the Los Angeles Times Book Review, New York Times, Bookforum, Village Voice, and the Nation. She is associate professor of journalism at New York University, where she directs the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program.

Reviews for The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence

The Cruel Radiance is a beautifully considered and unabashedly impassioned plea for the continuing moral relevance of photojournalism. (Jed Perl, New Republic)