Another History of Photography

A lengthy discussion of the book ""A History of Photography:
Social and Cultural Perspectives'', the English translation of
""Histoire de la Photographie'' (1986), edited by Jean Claude
Lemagny and André Rouillé. Among the essays in the book that the
author considers valuable are Anne McCauley's ""A.A.E. Disdéri
and the Carte de Visite Portrait Photograph'' (1985), describing
who was pictured, who not, and why, in late 19th and early 20th
century photographs; Marc Mélon on the social class investment
in pictorial photography; Rosalind Sartori's history of
factographic and collective photography in the Soviet Union
between the wars, and Rolf Sachsse description of Nazi
photography; Molly Nesbit's ""Photography, Art and Modernity'';
and Philippe Dubois' ""Photography and Contemporary Art''.
Credit is given to the fact that this comprehensive history
makes reference to issues raised in recent photographic theory
by such writers as Burgin, Sekula, Howard Becker and Susan
Sontag. Yet, the author points out, the book contains no
extensive sections or essays on popular photography,
photographic propaganda, visual ideology, corporate imagery, or
photographic representation in social science, anthropology,
philanthropy, jurisprudence, psychiatry, and medicine. A
comparison is made with Newhall's 'holistic' Photohistory. But,
as the author states: ""The notion of a stable, unified human
history, objectively observed, carefully channeled and written
from a Western perspective, is under severe challenge in all
fields''. Her final conclusion: ""Histories cannot be written
without hypotheses, even modest ones. But today, the best
history is history unsure of itself''.


Citaten:
Lemagny, J.-C. / Rouille, A.: Histoire de la Photographie (1986)
Dubois, P.: Photography and Contemporary Art (1986)
McCauley, A.: Disderi and the Carte-de-Visite (1985)
Mélon, Marc (..social class)
Sartori, Rosalind (SU photography)
Sachsse, Rolf (nazi photography ..)
Nesbit, M.: Photography, Art and Modernity (1986)
Banta, M. / Hinsley, C.M.: From Site to Sight (1986)
Bogdan, R.: Freak Show; Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit (1988)
Daniel, P. a.o.: Ofiicial Images: New Deal Photography (1987)
English, D.: Political Uses of Photography in the Third French Republic, 1871-1914 (1984)
Fox, D.M. / Lawrence, C.: Photographing Medecine: Images and Power in Britain and America since 1840 (1988)
McLuhan, T.C.: Dream Tracks: The Railroad and the American Indian, 1890-1930 (1985)
Nye, D.E.: Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric, 1890-1930 (1985)
Rouillé, A.: L'Empire de la Photographie (1982)
Clifford, J.: The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art (1988)
Panofsky, E.: The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline, in: Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955)