A history of the Memorial with black-and-white photos on each page.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

History

Katakis, Michael

Americas

Crown

Photographer Michael Katakis has spent the last twenty-five years traveling around the world with a camera and a journal. While collaborating with his wife, social anthropologist Kris Hardin, Katakis’s perceptive work has spanned continents and cultures. The brilliant result of that partnership is captured here in Photographs and Words. Among their projects presented here is their initial collaboration at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, where they photographed and interviewed both veterans and civilians, creating a moving portrait of America’s strengths, sacrifices, and errors during a profoundly divisive time in the nation’s history. A different and disturbing vision of America country emerges in “Troubled Land: Twelve Days across America,” in which Michael Katakis sought to have a dialogue with ordinary people immediately after September 11. Bookended by these two American projects were periods of fieldwork in Sierra Leone documenting a village and its inhabitants just before a bloody civil war began. The unintended significance created by the awful events that followed provides a disconcerting context for the images. Both a very personal project and a universal portrait of a troubled humanity, Photographs and Words presents the very best work from one of America’s most distinguished photographers.

Photographs and Words

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

British Library

Excavating Voices: Listening to Photographs of Native Americans

Three authors from diverse backgrounds contribute essays to this volume of photographs of Native Americans from the archives of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Noted photographer and author Michael Katakis, Professor of Native American literature and American Book Award winner Gerald Vizenor, and Associate Curator of the American collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum Robert Preucel have contributed very personal and sensitive essays inspired by the portraits in this volume. Listen closely as you look at these arresting images.

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Twenty-four evocative images, in postcard format, from the new book Excavating Voices: Listening to Photographs of Native Americans, by such renowned photographers as William Henry Jackson and Edward S. Curtis. Selected from the more than 300,000 images in the archives of the University of Pennsylvania Museum.
Also of interest— Excavating Voices Listening to Photographs of Native Americans Edited by Michael Katakis 1998 / 86 pages / 8 1/2 x 11 / 48 duotone illus. ISBN 0-924171-56-1 / Cloth ISBN 0-924171-57-X / Paper

"How could I have known then with no maps acquired and my bags not yet packed that my journey had already begun?...The tools of a traveler are compass and map. They calculate distances covered and destinations sought but cannot measure the consequences of experiences on a human heart," writes Michael Katakis in his introduction. Traveller is a collection of letters and journal entries that bring the immediacy of experience together with perceptive reflections of the author's own past. The entries in this volume are not travel guides. They are more personal, like letters from the most desirable sort of friend. The friend carries the listener with him as he meanders through the medina in Fez or into the hills of Gallipoli. His voice is such that listeners can almost smell the herbs and dusty soil of Crete, and always they are introduced to the people he meets along the way. For anyone curious about the world, and introduced with a foreword written and read by Michael Palin, Traveller is sure to delight, infuriate and, perhaps most importantly, inspire thought about the complex world around them.

The Traveller: Observations from an American in Exile

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Traveller

Once upon a time, Michael Katakis lived in a place of big dreams, bright colours and sleight of hand. That place was America. One night, travelling where those who live within illusions should never go, he stared into the darkness and glimpsed a faded flag where shadows gathered, revealing another America. It was a broken place, bred from fear and distrust - a thousand shards of glass - filled with a people who long ago had given away all that was precious; a people who had been sold, for so long, a foreign betrayal that finally came from within, and for nothing more than a handful of silver. These essays, letters and journal entries were written as a farewell to the country Michael loves still, and to the wife he knew as his 'True North'. A powerful and personal polemic, A Thousand Shards of Glassis Michael's appeal to his fellow citizens to change their course; a cautionary tale to those around the world who idealise an America that never was; and, crucially, a glimpse beyond the myth, to a country whose best days could still lie ahead.

A Thousand Shards of Glass: There Is Another America

Simon&Schuster

A Thousand Shards of Glass

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Simon Schuster(uk)

An old cowboy stares into the eyes of his dead wife and remembers a time before he knew her; a photojournalist and his terminally ill wife enjoy one last night together under the hunter's moon; a family wait for their son to return home from the civil war in Bosnia; and a dying man takes violent revenge against the people who ruined his life. Crisp, heartfelt and clear-eyed, Katakis's debut short story collection bears comparison with those of the great American writers and demonstrates the enduring power of love in even the cruellest of environments. &nbsp;&nbsp; "Dangerous Men is mesmerizing. These are wonderful, devastating stories, filled with dread and death, yet suffused with decency and love.&nbsp;I loved it."&nbsp;Ken Burns "Very violent and immensely readable, both deeply sad and deeply cathartic"&nbsp;Henry Marsh &nbsp; "Highly recommended for Steinbeck readers and others safe-sheltering from the dangerous men in Washington, D.C."&nbsp;Steinbeck Now &nbsp;"A work of great sensitivity and lyrical beauty."&nbsp;Raja Shehadeh &nbsp;

Dangerous Men

Literature & Fiction

United States

Scribner UK

Beautifully designed, intimate and illuminating, this is the story of American icon Ernest Hemingway's life through the documents, photographs, and miscellany he kept, compiled by the steward of the Hemingway estate and featuring contributions by his son and grandson. For many people, Ernest Hemingway remains more a compilation of myths than a person: soldier, sportsman, lover, expat, and of course, writer. But the actual life underneath these various legends remains elusive; what did he look like as a laughing child or young soldier? What did he say in his most personal letters? How did the train tickets he held on his way from France to Spain or across the American Midwest transform him, and what kind of notes, for future stories or otherwise, did he take on these journeys? Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from a Life answers these questions, and many others. Edited and with an introduction by the manager of the Hemingway estate, featuring a foreword by Hemingway’s son Patrick and an afterword by his grandson Seán, this rich and illuminating book tells the story of a major American icon through the objects he touched, the moments he saw, the thoughts he had every day. Featuring over four hundred dazzling images from every stage and facet of Hemingway’s life, many of them never previously published, this volume is a portrait unlike any other. From photos of Hemingway running with the bulls in Spain to candid letters he wrote to his wives and his publishers, it is a one-of-a-kind, stunning tribute to one of the most titanic figures in literature.

Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life

Scribner

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Katakis, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Katakis, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Katakis, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Photographs and Words

Excavating Voices: Listening to Photographs of Native Americans

Excavating Voices: Listening to Photographs of Native Americans

Excavating Voices: Listening to Photographs of Native Americans

The Traveller: Observations from an American in Exile

A Thousand Shards of Glass: There Is Another America

A Thousand Shards of Glass

Dangerous Men

Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life