Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description and abstraction -- Truth and fiction -- Measuring the body -- Mapping the land -- Politics of representation -- Pictures of war -- Form -- Appropriation -- Museums -- Archives -- Celebrity style, the publicity shot, and the maverick language of fashion -- Photography and the cinematic.

This innovative text recounts the history of photography through a series of thematically structured chapters. Designed and written for students studying photography and its history, each chapter approaches its subject by introducing a range of international, contemporary photographers and then contextualizing their work in historical terms. The book offers students an accessible route to gain an understanding of the key genres, theories and debates that are fundamental to the study of this rich and complex medium. Individual chapters cover major topics, including: Description and Abstraction Truth and Fiction The Body Landscape War Politics of Representation Form Appropriation Museums The Archive The Cinematic Fashion Photography Boxed focus studies throughout the text offer short interviews, curatorial statements and reflections by photographers, critics and leading scholars that link photography's history with its practice. Short chapter summaries, research questions and further reading lists help to reinforce learning and promote discussion. Whether coming to the subject from an applied photography or art history background, students will benefit from this book's engaging, example-led approach to the subject, gaining a sophisticated understanding of international photography in historical terms.

Erina Duganne is Associate Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University where she teaches courses on modern and contemporary art, photography, and visual culture. She is the author of The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography, was a co-curator, a co-editor, and an essayist for the exhibition and accompanying publication, Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the Traffic in Pain (2007). Heather Diack is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Miami. She is the author of Documents of Doubt: The Photographic Conditions of Conceptual Art (2020). Terri Weissman is Associate Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign where she teaches modern and contemporary art history, the history of photography and the history of design. She is also affiliated with the University of Illinois's Unit for Criticism and Interpretative Theory. She is the author of The Realisms of Berenice Abbott: Documentary Photography and Political Action and was co-curator and co-author for the exhibition and accompanying publication American Modern: Documentary Photographs by Abbott, Evans, and Bourke-White (2010).