Beginning with Paul Strand’s landmark From the Viaduct in 1916 and continuing through the present day, Photography’s Last Century examines defining moments in the history of the medium. Featuring nearly 100 masterworks from one of the most important private holdings of photography, the book includes works by Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Walker Evans, László Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, and Cindy Sherman, as well as a diverse group of important lesser-known practitioners. A fascinating interview with Ann Tenenbaum provides a personal account of the works, while the main text offers an essential history of photography that addresses the implications of calling this period the medium’s “last” century.

Presents a thematically indexed bibliography devoted to Afghanistan. Following the pattern established by one of its major data sources, viz, the acclaimed Index Islamicus, both journal articles and book publications are included and indexed.

This up-to-date, comprehensive, thematically indexed bibliography devoted to Afghanistan now and yesterday will help readers to efficiently find their way in the massive secondary literature available. Following the pattern established by one of its major data sources, viz. the acclaimed Index Islamicus, both journal articles and book publications are included and expertly indexed. An indispensable entry for all those taking professional or personal interest in a nation so much the focus of attention today.

Never before available in paperback and all but invisible for twenty years, a personal account of the origins of America's longest war. In 1982, the young William Vollmann worked odd jobs, including as a secretary at an insurance company, until he'd saved up enough money to go to Afghanistan, where he wanted to join the mujahedeen to fight the Soviets. The resulting book wasn't published until 1992, and Library Journal wrote: "The wrong book written at the wrong time. . . . With the situation in Afghanistan rapidly heading toward resolution . . . libraries may safely skip this." Thirty years later--and with the United States still mired in the longest war of its history--it's time for a reassessment of Vollmann's heartfelt tale of idealism and its terrifying betrayals. An alloy of documentary and autobiographical elements characteristic of Vollmann's later nonfiction, An Afghanistan Picture Show is not a work of conventional reportage; instead, it's an account of a subtle and stubborn consciousness grappling with the limits of will and idealism imposed by violence and chaos.

American-born Josephine Powell (1919-2007) lived an unusual life, characterized by her extensive travel as an independent photographer and ethnographic collector. She spent most of her life in the Muslim world, where she studied the material culture of the rural and urban lifestyles she encountered. She stands in a long tradition of Western women travelers who overlooked the boundaries of their own societies to discover new social roles in the East. The last twenty years of her life, Powell spent studying the disappearing ways of life of Anatolian nomads. She lived and worked in Istanbul, where she died in 2007, at the age of 87.Powell s photographic legacy records aspects of societies that today no longer exist. The unique combination of photography and ethnographic collecting gives an exceptionally complete insight on these vanishing cultures. Today her photos and objects are part of the collections of some of the world s most renowned ethnographic museums. In this "Bulletin," Judith Vos and Mohamed Saadouni outline the collections Josephine Powell assembled for the Tropenmuseum during the 1960s in Pakistan and Morocco respectively. Deniz Unsal examines Josephine Powell s most recent activities in the field of preserving Anatolian nomadic weaving traditions. The "Bulletin" includes a DVD with two ethnographic documentary films made by Josephine Powell in Morocco in the 1960s. Josephine Powell was born in New York, where she studied Arts and Sciences at Cornell University and Social Work at Columbia University. Her architectural photos appeared in well over 150 books and scholarly publications. Collections of her photographs and ethnographic objects are held by the British Museum, Harvard University, the Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam) and the Wereldmuseum (Rotterdam). After her death in 2007, Josephine Powell s entire private collection of Anatolian textiles and ethnographic objects was donated to the Vehbi Koc Foundation in Istanbul.

The book offers a clear, authoritative and readable guide to the modern history of Afghanistan. This remote land made up of many tribes and ethnic peoples on the borders of Central Asia became a focus of Superpower rivalry and international intrigue after the Soviet invasion in 1979. This book shows how Afghanistan's traditional society has been profoundly shaken up in a cruelly destructive war, causing the world's biggest refugee problem and a chronic instability which threatens the wider region.