Amazon.com Review
A 1947 lunch meeting of four friends proved to be one of the most auspicious dates in the history of photojournalism. It was around a lunch table that day that Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and David Seymour--each recently returned from covering World War II and its aftermath--formed the Magnum photo agency. Since then, Magnum photographers, with their singular knack for capturing history in an instant, have been responsible for creating many of the most iconic images of our world, in both war and peace. Magnum Degrees is a selection of agency photos that illustrates the range of subject matter and imagery the photographers have captured over the last half century.
The book, which overflows with photographs and includes only the briefest amount of text, is arranged thematically to effectively highlight the wide scope of images even within a narrow field. In "Middle East," Larry Towell captures boys playing in Gaza, while Micha Bar-Am trains his camera on a Jewish man, wrapped in a prayer shawl, fleeing a smoke bomb in Jerusalem. In "India," in the town of Benares, Ferdinando Scianna snaps photos of an excruciatingly thin man carrying his dead daughter and two nicely dressed young girls frolicking in the water. In "Religion," photographer Abbas trains his lens both on a man reenacting the Crucifixion in the Philippines and a woman being physically moved by the Holy Spirit in a rural Georgia church. As some of the themes--"Refugees," "Child Victims," "In the Camps," "War in Africa"--suggest, many of the images here are powerfully disturbing. Others, particularly those collected under the headings "Trees," "Fishing," and "Architecture," are lyrically beautiful. Still others, like Martin Parr's photographs of tourists on vacation the world over, are witty and comic. Taken together, the thousand or so photos here capture the often surprising, always complex nature of humanity and do justice to the agency founders' original intention to "document the world as it really is." --Jordana Moskowitz

From Library Journal
Founded in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and other eminent photographers, Magnum is an agency of elected photojournalists who independently photograph what they choose rather than what they are assigned. Arguably the best of their profession, their images can have a lasting impact on viewers, often combining a moment in history with carefully honed artistic detail. Compiled in conjunction with a worldwide tour, this hefty exhibition catalog contains over 600 color and black-and-white photographs by 69 Magnum photographers, including original contributions from Cartier-Bresson. Throughout, these images attempt to make sense of today's complex globalization while graphically portraying the suffering, devastation, and revolutions of the last decade, beginning with the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. More universal experiences are represented as well. Brief comments by the photographers summarize their perceptions, and historian Michael Ignatieff's introduction nicely frames the clear images--though the tiny orange print may annoy some readers. Recommended for general collections.
-Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.