Gebundenes Buch

Philip Jones Griffiths : Viet Nam At Peace

Beschreibung

No one has charted the misfortunes of the innocent people caught up in the Viet Nam war as Philip Jones Griffiths. This book chonicles his respect and love for the country 25 years after the end of the war. Viet Nam At Peace is the monumental chronicle of a country struggling to emerge from the apocalyptic destruction of war, a destruction so seismic that it was thought vainly by many to be the end of all contemporary imperial aggression. It is Tolstoyan in its reach and emotional responses. Philip Jones Griffiths, the author of Vietnam Inc. and Agent Orange: Collateral Damage in Viet Nam, has visited Viet Nam 25 times since the end of the war. The first Westerner to travel by road from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City after the war, and later the Ho Chi Minh trail, he has amassed an unparalleled photographic record of the post-war transformation of the country. From the first days of terrible hardships, as the joys of victory were quickly tempered by the reality of the extent of the destruction wreaked by the war, and the crippling effects of the US embargo, he has recorded an uncomfortably comprehensive view of the aftermath of war. This is not simply a record of shattered landscapes; it is also a record of the shattered hearts and minds, culture and hopes. He has witnessed the limbless heroes, the Amerasian children, the boat people, and the re-emergence of the social problems of prostitution and drug addiction as the country embraces consumerism. Equally, here are recognised the horrified attempts by the Vietnamese themselves to curb the hydra of its worst excesses.

Autor

Born in 1936 in Rhuddlan, Wales, Philip Jones Griffiths studied pharmacy in Liverpool and worked in London while photographing part-time for the Manchester Guardian. In 1961, he became a full-time freelancer for the London-based Observer. He covered the Algerian War in 1962, then moved to Central Africa. From there, he moved to Asia, photographing in Vietnam from 1966 to 1971. His book on the war, Vietnam Inc. (1971), crystallized public opinion and gave form to Western misgivings about American involvement in Vietnam. One of the most detailed surveys of any conflict, Vietnam Inc. is also an in-depth document of Vietnamese culture under attack. An associate member of Magnum since 1966, Jones Griffiths became a full member in 1971. In 1973, he covered the Yom Kippur War, then worked in Cambodia between 1973 and 1975. In 1977, he covered Asia from his base in Thailand. In 1980, he moved to New York to assume the presidency of Magnum, a post he held for a record five years. Jones Griffiths's assignments, often self-engineered, took him to more than 120 countries. He worked for Life and Geo on stories such as Buddhism in Cambodia, droughts in India, poverty in Texas, the re-greening of Vietnam, and the legacy of the Gulf War in Kuwait. His continued revisiting of Vietnam, examining the legacy of the war, led to his two further books Agent Orange and Vietnam at Peace. A key theme of Jones Griffiths's work is the unequal relationship between technology and humanity, summed up in his book Dark Odyssey (1996). Human foolishness always attracted his eye, but, faithful to the ethics of the Magnum founders, he believed passionately in human dignity and in the capacity for improvement. Philip Jones Griffiths died in London on March 18, 2008.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Trolley Books
• Seitenzahl: 312
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Mai 2005
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 342mm x 248mm x 32mm
• Gewicht: 2583g
• ISBN-13: 9781904563389
• ISBN-10: 1904563384
• Artikelnr.: 21510967