A World History of Photography

I was astounded at how much information Rosenblum was able to distill into a very readable and interesting book. And she has included so many historical photographs !!! I suspect that any person who cares about the "roots" of photography, especially the great masters of photography that preceeded us, will find this book to be very helpful, profound and even inspirational. Just don't drop this very heavy book on your foot.

A lot of information concentrated in one book, just what I needed: A lot of facts with perfect examples of photos and other illustrations. Especially I liked that there are no author's opinions, or philosophical discussions in this book, just facts.

This book is used as a text for a history of photography course at Idaho State University. It is an excellent book and the pictures are reproduced beautifully. When I saw the book on the shelf, I thought I would have to pay at least $100 for it. I was happily surprised to find out how inexpensive it is.

I have owned a copy of this book for several years and it still gets used with the frequency it deserves. I confess having been quite ignorant about the history of photography: it seemed the type of record I would not be particularly interested in (old photos are too old, and new ones are in the daily paper); but my attempt to read Susan Sontag's book ON PHOTOGRAPHY demanded precisely the nearby presence of a reference such as this one, and so I came to own my copy. The book is very thorough, deeply scholarly, and broadly based. If it has to do with the record of photography as culture it is likely to be found here. I treasure it.

The book is an outstanding and thorough history of the photographic process, equipment, photographers and styles from Niepce's first photos through color photographs from the 1980's. A very complete survey, especially of the photographers with lots of examples.