Provides a perspective on the story of photography through the history of the photobook. This volume covers company photobooks, artists' photobooks, photobooks that have been compiled by editors, as well as photobooks, which chronicle contemporary life. This study provides a corrective to the history of photography.

The book is divided into a series of thematic chapters, each featuring a general introductory text providing background information and highlighting the dominant political and artistic influences on the photobook in the period, followed by more detailed discussion of the individual photobooks. The chapter texts are followed by spreads and images from over 200 books, which provide the central means of telling the history of the photobook. Chosen by Parr and Badger, these illustrations show the most artistically and culturally important photobooks in three dimensions, with the cover or jacket and a selection of spreads from the book shown.

Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Mirrors and Windows: Recent American Photobooks
Chapter 2
- Common Market: Recent European Photobooks
Chapter 3 - Without Frontiers: The Worldwide Photobook
Chapter 4 - Appropriating Photography: The Artist's Photobook
Chapter 5 - Point of Sale: The Company Photobook
Chapter 6 - Looking At Photographs: The Picture Editor As Auteur
Chapter 7 - The Camera As Witness: The 'Concerned' Photobook Since World War II
Chapter 8 - The Dusseldorf Tendency: The New 'New Objectivity'
Chapter 9 - Home And Away: Modern Life and The Photobook
Chronology
Select Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements