Sitting in his study, William Carlos Williams once revealed to Robert Coles what he considered to be his greatest problem in writing a documentary about his patients in New Jersey. "When I'm there, sitting with those folks, listening and talking," he said to Coles, "I'm part of that life, and I'm near it in my head, too.... Back here, sitting near this typewriter--its different. I'm a writer. I'm a doctor living in Rutherford who is describing 'a world elsewhere.'" Williams captured the great difficulty in documentary writing--the gulf that separates the reality of the subject from the point of view of the observer . Now, in this thought-provoking volume, the renowned child psychiatrist Robert Coles, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Children in Crisis series, offers a penetrating look into the nature of documentary work. Utilizing the documentaries of writers, photographers, and others, Coles shows how their prose and pictures are influenced by the observer's frame of reference: their social and educational background, personal morals, and political beliefs. He discusses literary documentaries: James Agee's searching portrait of Depression-era tenant farmers, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and George Orwell's passionate description of England's coal-miners, The Road to Wigan Pier. Like many documentarians, Coles argues, Agee and Orwell did not try to be objective, but instead showered unadulterated praise on the "noble" poor and vituperative contempt on the more privileged classes (including themselves) for "exploiting" these workers. Documentary photographs could be equally revealing about the observer. Coles analyzes how famous photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange edited and cropped their pictures to produce a desired effect. Even the shield of the camera could not hide the presence of the photographer. Coles also illuminates his points through his personal portraits of William Carlos Williams; Robert Moses, one of the leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s; Erik H. Erikson, biographer of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther; and others. Documentary work, Coles concludes, is more a narrative constructed by the observer than a true slice of reality. With the growth in popularity of films such as Ken Burns's The Civil War and the controversial basketball documentary Hoop Dreams, the question of what is "real" in documentary work is more pressing than ever. Through revealing discussions with documentarians and insightful analysis of their work, complemented by dramatic black-and-white photographs from Lange and Evans, Doing Documentary Work will provoke the reader into reconsidering how fine the line is between truth and fiction. It is an invaluable resource for students of the documentary and anyone interested in this important genre.

Doing Documentary Work (New York Public Library Lectures in Humanities)

Arts & Photography

COLES, Robert

Photography & Video

New York Public Library

In this visionary look into the future, Freeman Dyson argues that technological changes fundamentally alter our ethical and social arrangements and that three rapidly advancing new technologies--solar energy, genetic engineering, and world-wide communication--together have the potential to create a more equal distribution of the world's wealth. Dyson begins by rejecting the idea that scientific revolutions are primarily concept driven. He shows rather that new tools are more often the sparks that ignite scientific discovery. Such tool-driven revolutions have profound social consequences--the invention of the telescope turning the Medieval world view upside down, the widespread use of household appliances in the 1950s replacing servants, to cite just two examples. In looking ahead, Dyson suggests that solar energy, genetics, and the Internet will have similarly transformative effects, with the potential to produce a more just and equitable society. Solar power could bring electricity to even the poorest, most remote areas of third world nations, allowing everyone access to the vast stores of information on the Internet and effectively ending the cultural isolation of the poorest countries. Similarly, breakthroughs in genetics may well enable us to give our children healthier lives and grow more efficient crops, thus restoring the economic and human vitality of village cultures devalued and dislocated by the global market. Written with passionate conviction about the ethical uses of science, The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet is both a brilliant reinterpretation of the scientific process and a challenge to use new technologies to close, rather than widen, the gap between rich and poor.

The Sun, The Genome, and The Internet: Tools of Scientific Revolution (New York Public Library Lectures in Humanities)

Politics & Social Sciences

Dyson, Freeman J.

Social Sciences

A Hundred Years of Grand Opera in New York, 1825-1925: A Record of Performances

Mattfeld, Julius

Music

Archibald Robertson: his diaries and sketches in America, 1762-1780 (Eyewitness accounts of the American Revolution)

Robertson, Archibald

For some years Ned Bowman compiled his bibliography on theater architecture. This is the first publication of the complete bibliography to 1965. The addition of a representative selection of photos &amp; plans of contemporary theaters, grouped &amp; analyzed by Maxwell Silverman, makes this a book of record &amp; an illustrated report on trends in theater architecture over the two decades following WW2 which reached culmination at Lincoln Center in NYC. This book is of great use to architects, designers, directors, &amp; planners of new theater bldgs., municipal or univ. cultural arts centers, as well as educators, municipal &amp; state governments, fdns., &amp; other benefactors of new theater bldgs.

Contemporary Theatre Architecture: An Illustrated Survey

Ned A. Bowman

Maxwell Silverman

George Freedley

Architecture

Fifty-five manuscripts described and illustrated. The hardbound variant of this book. Loosely inserted in this copy is a note from "Karl" Kup to Mary Hyde meant to accompany this copy. Covers show spotting. Not paginated. cloth, paper cover label.. small 4to..

The Christmas story in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts from the Spencer Collection (Spencer Publication Fund publication)

Kup, Karl

English Bible in America : A Bibliography of Editions of the Bible and the New Testament Published in America 1777-1957

Margaret T. Hills

Images of the Dance: Historical Treasures of the Dance Collection, 1581-1861

Moore, Lillian C.

The definitive bibliographical reference work on the personal narratives and military history of both sides in the War Between the States.

Military Bibliography of the Civil War: General References, Armed Forces, & Campaigns & Battles

History

Americas

A catalogue that was inspired by the extraordinary response to an exhibition on Music in Prints that was prepared by the Prints Division of The New York Public Library. There was much public interest in the striking visual evidence of music's role in social history. The fifty-two plates are reproduced from original woodcuts, engravings, etchings, and lithographs in the Library's collection, which are largely concerned with the representation of musical instruments, and through them musical life from the fifteenth century to the present day. Indexed. With the small booklabel of Ruari McLean on front pastedown. not paginated. cloth with a paper cover label.. small 4to..

Music in Prints: 52 Prints Illustrating Musical Instruments from the 15th Century to the Present

Sydney Beck

Elizabeth Roth

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