Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

If you want to understand the key debates in photography and learn how to apply the fascinating issues raised by critical theory to your own practical work, this is the book for you! This accessible book cuts through often difficult and intimidating academic language to deliver understandable, stimulating discussion and summaries of the original texts. Key works by great writers such as Sontag and Barthes are explored, along with those from other prominent critics. You are guided through a broad range of issues, including the differences between Eastern and Western art, post-modernism, sexism, the relationship between photography and language and many other crucial debates. The book is illustrated by many classic images by eminent international photographers. Each chapter is followed by stimulating assignments and activities to get you thinking critically and apply theoretical knowledge to your own practical work. A helpful glossary provides quick access to all key terms and a substantial index references key words within the original essays which are not normally indexed. A must-have aid to anyone studying critical theory, this book provides intelligently written, illuminating insights on the 21st century's dominant art form.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• How to use this book (p. vii)
• Frontispiece (p. xi)
• Foreword (p. xiii)
• Acknowledgements (p. xvii)
• 1 John Berger, Ways of Seeing (p. 1)
• 2 John Szarkowski, The Photographer's Eye and Stephen Shore, The Nature of Photographs (p. 15)
• 3 Susan Sontag, On Photography (p. 30)
• 4 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (p. 76)
• 5 Martha Rosler, In, Around and Afterthoughts (On Documentary Photography) (p. 113)
• 6 Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Inside/Out (p. 125)
• 7 Clive Scott, The Spoken Image: Photography and Language (p. 133)
• 8 Andy Grundberg, The Crisis of the Real (p. 149)
• 9 Raghubir Singh, River of Colour (p. 159)
• 10 Bertrand Russell, Appearance and Reality (p. 169)
• 11 Italo Calvino, The Adventures of a Photographer (p. 172)
• 12 Poems by Felix Morisseau-Leroy and George Szirtes (p. 187)
• 13 Robert Adams', John Baldessari's and Peter Godwin's Analysis of Particular Photographs (p. 193)
• Figures (p. 199)
• Bibliography (p. 222)
• Appendixes (p. 226)
• Glossary (p. 236)
• Index (p. 248)