The cruel radiance : photography and political violence

We cite from the COVER:
"Since the early days of photography, critics have told us that photographs of political violence—of torture, mutilation, and death—are exploitative, deceitful, even pornographic. To look at these images is, they insist, voyeuristic; to turn away is a gesture of respect."
"With The Cruel Radiance, Susie Linfield attacks those ideas head-on, arguing passionately that viewing such photographs—and learning to see the people in them—is an ethically and politically necessary act that connects us to our modern history of violence and probes our capacity for cruelty. Contending with critics from Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht to Susan Sontag and the postmoderns—and analyzing photographs from such events as the Holocaust, China's Cultural Revolution, the civil wars in Africa, and recent terrorist acts—Linfield explores the complex connection between photojournalism and the rise of human rights ideals. In the book's concluding section, she examines the indispensable work of Robert Capa, James Nachtwey, and Gilles Peress, and asks how photography has—and should—respond to the increasingly nihilistic trajectory of modern warfare."
*
CONTENTS:
Preface: The Black book
Part One : Polemics
1. A little history of photography criticism; or, Why do photography critics hate photography?
2. Photojournalism and human rights: the calamity of the Kodak
Parte Two : Places
3. Warsaw, Lodz, Auschwitz: in the waiting room of death
4. China: from Malraux's dignity to the Red Guards' shame
5. Sierra Leone: beyond the sorrow and the pity
6. Abu Ghraib and the jihad: the dance of civilizations
Part Three : People
7. Robert Capa: the optimist
8. James Nachtwey: the catastrophist
9. Gilles Peress: the skeptic
Notes / Bibliography / Index