Baudelaire didn’t think that criticism would save the world, but he didn’t think it was a worthless pursuit, either. In 1846, Charles Baudelaire wrote a short essay called “What Is the Good of Criticism?” This is something that virtually every critic asks herself at some point, and that many have had trouble answering it has been known to evoke hopelessness, despair, even self-loathing. Rather, with vivid common sense and with painstaking, often abashed humanity, she guides us through the moral minefield where horror meets art, and helps us to see.”-Claudia Roth PierpontĪn excerpt from The Cruel Radiance Photography and Political Violence Susie LinfieldĪ Little History of Photography Criticism or, Why Do Photography Critics Hate Photography? Examining images from the Spanish Civil War to Rwanda, she accepts no easy, sweeping answers. “A profoundly thoughtful account of the role of photojournalism in an irremediably violent world, Linfield’s book is as much about conscience and empathy as it is about photography. And she has the moral strength to look at these images of mutilation, death, and destruction, explain their value, and demand that we look at them, too.”-Michael Walzer Susie Linfield has a good eye for the photographs and a good head for the politics.
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