The Cruel Radiance

Photography and Political Violence

Susie Linfield

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Hardback

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English

Chicago University Press
01 November 2010

Photography & photographs; Photographic reportage; Journalistic style guides; Violence in society; Political oppression & persecution; Terrorism, armed struggle

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: Chicago University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 23mm, Width: 16mm, Spine: 3mm
Weight: 680g
ISBN: 9780226482507
ISBN 10: 0226482502
Pages: 344
Publication Date: 01 November 2010
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Susie Linfield is associate professor of journalism at New York University, where she directs the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program. She 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, Rolling Stone, and the Nation.

Reviews for The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence

This is a magnificent book. Susie Linfield has a good eye for the photographs and a good head for the politics. And she has the moral strength to look at these images of mutilation, death, and destruction, explain their value, and demand that we look at them, too. - Michael Walzer