A short list of great books on war photography, recommended by photojournalists, war correspondents and museum curators/consultants.
The items cover Civil War-era photography (Matthew Brady); through World War II (Robert Capa and the Magnum book); the Vietnam era (Requiem); and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (almost everything else).
Two are produced from museum shows, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas (finished earlier this year) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (ongoing).
The recommended books, alphabetically:
"Deeds of War," by James Nachtwey;
"Here I Am: The Story of Tim Hetherington, War Photographer," by Alan Huffman;
"In the Wake of Battle: the Civil War Images of Matthew Brady," by George Sullivan;
"Magnum: Fifty Years at the Frontline of History," the story of the legendary photo agency, by Russell Miller;
"Photography and the American Civil War," by Jeff L. Rosenheim. (Metropolitan Museum of Art.)
"Photojournalism: 150 Years of Outstanding Press Photography," by Reuel Golden;
"Photojournalists on War: the Untold Stories from Iraq," by Michael Kamber;
"Requiem: By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina," by Horst Faas, editor; foreword by David Halberstam;
"Robert Capa: Photographs," by Richard Whelan;
"Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection," by Richard Whelan;
"Shooting under Fire: the World of the War Photographer," by Peter Howe;
"This is Our War: A Soldier's Portfolio: Servicemen's Photographs of Life in Iraq," by Devin Friedman;
"Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq," by Thorne Anderson;
"War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and its Aftermath," by Anne Wilkes Tucker. (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.)
Editor's note:
For more on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibit on "Photography and the American Civil War," which runs through September 2, click here. If you want to read about the Houston Museum of Fine Art's "War/Photography" exhibition, now over, click here.
