If you read only one photo book in your lifetime, let it be Magnum America: The United States. An epic collection of images from the prestigious photography cooperative Magnum Photos, Magnum America combines more than 600 captivating images from its collection into 472 pages, and each of them is a hit. The weighty tome is organized by decades, and flipping through any given section is like watching history pass before your eyes. The 1940s includes iconic portraits of figures like Albert Einstein and Salvador Dali, important photojournalism like W. Eugene Smith’s shot of President Truman holding up a newspaper emblazoned with the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman,” and a one-two punch of powerful works by Henri Cartier-Bresson: a threesome of young people on a Coney Island beach followed by a hanging dummy advertising used cars in Jackson, Mississippi. It’s the juxtaposition of the images that gives the book its most powerful resonance. Disturbing war photography is followed by documents of family get-togethers and athletes in moments of victory. Special sections devoted to particularly noteworthy collections, like Susan Meiselas’ 1970s Carnival Strippers portraits and Jim Goldberg’s mid-’90s study of runaway teens, Raised by Wolves, provide crash courses in essential works. There are also sections dedicated to multiple photographers working on the same subject, like the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and the 9/11 attacks. There is no better introduction to American postwar history than the photographs included in this book. What’s more is that there may be no better introduction to the history of photography, either.
