America: Then & Now : Great Old Photographs of America's Life and Times-And How Those Same Scenes Look Today

From Library Journal
Cohen, editor of A Day in the Life of America and eight other titles from the "Day in the Life" series, has produced a variation on this theme: the then-and-now collection. Enlisting the services of such contemporary photographers as Douglas Kirkland and Paul Chesley, new photographs were matched with older prototypes. Some pairs are literal, such as the stunning gatefold showing two views of the New York City skyline from 1876 and 1992. Others are more conceptual: A bootlegger's haul seized at the border between the United States and Mexico in 1928 is compared to a 1991 heroin cache in San Francisco. A soup kitchen queue of 1931 is, sadly, all too close a match to last year's food line at a Philadelphia hospice. An excellent tool for history classes, thoroughly engaging for any browser, and a nostalgic look back for older readers, this book is a stand-out among visual surveys.- Kathy J. Anderson, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.


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This oversize album is part confection and part social document--but a source of fun no matter how seriously the book will ultimately be regarded. Cohen, who created the popular "Day in the Life of America", dug out a slew of photographs capturing various aspects of American life taken anywhere from the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth; next to each photograph he juxtaposed a contemporary photograph of a comparable or in some instances the same scene. Manhattan's skyline in 1876 was certainly shorter in building height than it is today but more crowded in terms of ships' masts and sails around its watered periphery; a Union cavalry trooper in the Civil War may wear a different uniform than today's soldier but the look found in his eyes is pretty much the same; and a 1928 photograph of a bootleg liquor bust near the U.S.-Mexico border seems a far more romantic affair than a present-day heroin bust in San Francisco. Nothing awfully weighty here, just a visually enticing then-and-now comparison that gives the viewer a sense that the good of technological and social progress is often debatable. Given the publisher's promotion efforts, expect demand.


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