The Great LIFE Photographers - Tapa dura

From 1936 until the end of the 20th century, the photographers of Life magazine travelled the globe to chronicle in pictures every aspect of the human condition. This book is their testament, and it in turn is a testament to their talent, creativity and, indeed, their courage. The best work of every Life magazine staff photographer, as well as that of a handful of others closely affiliated with the magazine, is on display in this book. Here are portfolios by over 100 of the greatest photographers the world has ever known, including Alfred Eisenstadt, Margaret Bourke-White, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, W. Eugene Smith, Robert Capa, Ralph Morse, Nina Leen, Harry Benson, Philippe Halsman and, most recently, Joe McNally. Here are Capa's pictures from the D-Day landing, Mydans's of MacArthur striding ashore, Bourke-White's evidence of the Holocaust, David Douglas Duncan's Korea, Larry Burrows's Vietnam, Ralph Morse's chronicle of the Mercury 7 astronauts. Here are intimate, defining and revealing portraits of celebrities, from Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe to the Beatles and Michael Jackson. This is a volume of living history - the history of our times, as seen by the photographers who captured and immortalized it.

John Loengard has edited numerous books for Life, including Life: Faces and Life Photographers: What They Saw. Gordon Parks is one of the very greatest of Life's photographers: 'Twenty-odd years at Life taught me to take the measure of the world that surrounds us. I saw the world differently.'