Bøger af Peter Walther

Über drei Jahrzehnte dokumentierte Edward S. Curtis die untergehende Kultur der indigenen Bevölkerung Nordamerikas mit der Kamera. Dieser Band versammelt mit mehr als 700 Fotografien aus seinem epochalen Hauptwerk The North American Indian die Summe seiner fotografischen Erkundungen.

"Through these travels and the photographs, I got to love the United States more than I could have in any other way." -- Jack DelanoAmid the ravages of the Great Depression, the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) was first founded in 1935 to address the country's rural poverty. Its efforts focused on improving the lives of sharecroppers, tenants, and very poor landowning farmers, with resettlement and collectivization programs, as well as modernized farming methods. In a parallel documentation program, the FSA hired a number of photographers and writers to record the lives of the rural poor and "introduce America to Americans."This book records the full reach of the FSA program from 1935 to 1943, honoring its vigor and commitment across subjects, states, and stylistic preferences. The photographs are arranged into four broad regional sections but otherwise allowed to speak for themselves--to provide individual impressions as much as they cumulatively build an indelible survey of a nation.The images are both color and black-and-white, and span the complete spetrum of American rural life. They show us convicts, cotton workers, kids, and relocated workers on the road. We see subjects victim to the elements of nature as much as to the vagaries of the global economic market. We find the work of such perceptive, sensitive photographers as Marion Post Wolcott, Jack Delano, Russell Lee, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, and Dorothea Lange, and read their own testimonies to the FSA project and their encounters with their subjects, including Lange's worn, weather-beaten and iconic Migrant Mother.What unites all of the pictures is a commitment to the individuality and dignity of each subject, as much as to the witness they bear to this particular period of the American past. The subjects are entrenched in the hardships of their historical lot as much as they are caught in universal cycles of growing, playing, eating, aging, and dying. Yet they face the viewer with what is utterly their own: a unique, irreplaceable, often unforgettable presence.About the seriesBibliotheca Universalis -- Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe!

Als erste Frau, die das noch junge Medium der Fotografie wissenschaftlich nutzte, fing Anna Atkins die Zartheit von Algen und Farnen in Bildern ein. Dieser Band kombiniert erstmals ihre Werke British Algae und Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns in vollem Umfang und zeigt ihre wegweisende Praxis, botanische Arten fotografisch zu dokumentieren.

'Gripping and all too timely' James Hawes'A brilliant mix of detailed research and vivid storytelling' Julia Boyd'History at its very best - and a fabulous translation, too' Graham HurleyIn March 1930, after the collapse of the coalition that had ruled Germany since 1928, President Hindenburg asked Heinrich Bruning, bespectacled and scholarly leader of the Catholic Centre Party, to form a government. Some three years later, in January 1933, Hindenburg appointed as chancellor the demagogic, virulently anti-Semitic leader of the National Socialist party. Within weeks, Adolf Hitler has begun the process of dismantling the flawed democracy of the Weimar Republic and replacing it with a one-party totalitarian state.Darkness Falling depicts in compelling fashion the serial crises and mounting violence of a febrile era. Peter Walther examines the slow death of Weimar through the prism of nine colourful protagonists, including leading German politicians of right, left and centre, the clairvoyant and occultist, Erik Jan Hanussen and the formidable American journalist Dorothy Thompson. He profiles these heterogeneous characters in intriguing detail, pulling together the threads of their lives to chart the demise of German parliamentary democracy and the rise of National Socialist tyranny. Along the way we gain fascinating insights into the machinations in the corridors of power to keep the 'Bohemian corporal' from the chancellorship, and the venality of the Nazi elite and its fellow travellers from the demi-monde of early 1930s Berlin. Walther evokes the louche nightlife of the German capital - 'a playground for charlatans and prophets, madmen and crooks' - memorably and atmospherically.A masterly fusion of meticulously researched historical writing and vividly propulsive storytelling, Darkness Falling is a distinctive and enthralling account of Germany's slide from democracy to dictatorship.

"WikipeteR ist unsere Antwort auf geradlinige Antworten. Dieser Mann weiß, wo der Frosch die Locken hat. Noch wichtiger ist aber, dass er auch weiß, wer den Frosch frisiert hat, wann das ganze stattgefunden hat, wo der Frosch zuvor einkaufen war und was die KPD mit alldem zu schaffen hat. Dieses personifizierte Konzentrat an menschlicher Weisheit der Menschheit vorzuenthalten wäre ein unentschuldbares Vergehen, und so konnten wir WikipeteR davon überzeugen, unseren Wählern und Wählerinnen einmal pro Woche eine ihrer drängendsten Fragen zu beantworten."In seiner Kolumne "Nicht verzagen - WikipeteR fragen" hat der Autor nach diesem Aufruf ein knappes Jahr lang merkwürdige Fragen wie "Würde die Kakerlake wirklich als einzige den Krieg überleben, wenn es nur zwei männliche Exemplare gäbe?", "Was siegt in Wirklichkeit: Dummheit oder Intelligenz?" oder "Sollte man sich, wie Kant meint, seines eigenen Verstandes bedienen? Oder reicht in vielen Fällen auch schon das Internet?" beantwortet. In diesem Band sind nun sämtliche, manchmal seltsam gewendete, aber stets akkurat recherchierte Antworten versammelt, mit denen Peter Walther seinen Beinamen "WikipeteR, das einzige Wesen im Universum außer Gott, das wirklich alles weiß" Woche für Woche gerechtfertigt hat.

In diesem Band sind einige der schrägen Gestalten, Orte und Erlebnisse aus dem Leben des Autors versammelt, die er zu kleinen Geschichten verdichtet und im Lauf der Jahre in seinem Blog archilocheion.net veröffentlicht hat."Den Text durchziehen mitunter Blue Notes wie Rauch die Stockwerke über der Pianobar. Atmosphäre, Kolorit, Zauber ... kurze Schnipsel, 5-Minuten-Lektüre, Bagatellen, Skizzen, Kurzerzählungen, ein ironisches und selbstironisches Dokument.""... eine Zeitreise, aber auch ein sehr individuelles Statement eines - wie mir scheint - Unbeugsamen.""Ein lesenswertes, unsentimentales und doch manchmal geradezu zärtliches Buch.""... eine selten leichtflüglig nüchterne Melancholie ... ein fantastischer Erzähler: lakonisch, unterhaltsam, wahrheitsgetreu, einem Raum fürs Nachdenken lassend."

More than 300 photographs by Lewis W. Hine, whose trailblazing documentary images of early 20th-century working conditions helped to transform United States labor laws. This book covers all eras of Hine's work, including his pictures of child laborers, of new immigrants on Ellis Island, and of the construction of the Empire State Building.

Amid the ravages of the Great Depression, the photographers of the Farm Security Administration set out to document the rural poor and "introduce America to Americans." With nearly 400 pictures from the likes Dorothea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott, Walker Evans, and Russell Lee, this collection celebrates their efforts, as much for the power of...