Pictures of You – Rory MacLean

Year: 2017
Edition: First
Pages: 200
Dimensions: 13 x 19.8 cm
Format: Softcover

Ten real lives, ten photographs, ten journeys in time: the first killing of the Cold War, the dying hopes of a doomed aviator, the ghosts of Native America at Alcatraz, Chairman Mao’s most timid lover, Nature’s final battle with Man. One photograph – or group of photographs – comes from each decade of the 20th century. All belong to the Archive of Modern Conflict. Over the past 25 years, the archive’s small collection of amateur photographs has grown into one of the world’s most moving image treasuries, its shelves now holding pictures of some four-million lost lives.

In the 20th century, amateur photography took history – and collective memory – out of the hands of historians and gave it to individuals. In Pictures of You, bestselling author Rory MacLean narrates a journey across the globe and into the lives of ordinary men and women who lived through extraordinary times. He travels along the archive’s shelves, venturing from Siberia to Rangoon, China to Shepperton Studios, hearing forgotten voices that echo from the depths of time, picturing lives that mirror our own and saving the stories behind these pictures of you.

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