The Weimar Republic: Through the Lens of the Press

ISBN: 3829026978

Author: Torsten Palmer

Condition: New

The Weimar era was a politically turbulent, economically uncertain but culturally dazzling age, which began with the end of the First World War in 1918 and ended abruptly when the National-Socialists came to power. The documentary photographs in this book take the reader on an extraordinary journey through time, as it was in Berlin during the 1920s that the age of the visual mass media began. In addition to recording the great events of the age, journalists began to take a keener interest in people's daily lives, capturing them in superb photo essays. This new approach found expression in the high circulation illustrated magazines of the Weimar Republic, which helped fore the bond between photographs and the press reports that has shaped modern journalism. THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC showcases the society of the 1920s in all its kaleidoscopic variety. The work of photojournalists is further brought to lie by the voices of contempoary people -- through extract from diaries, songs, memoirs and political speeches. Each chapter is introduced by a commentary that sets the historical scene. No other city was as typical of the Weimar Republic as its political and cultural center: Berlin. Teh journalistic focus of the age is therfore also the focus of this book, which devotes a whole chapter to Berliners and a portrait of their city. Together with the photojournalists of the 1920s and 1930s, the reader can stroll through Berlin's streets from its boulevards to its red-light districts. In the richly illustrated glossary the reader will find biographical sketches of the people who each left their individual mark on the Weimar epoch. This book is an extremely valuable reference work on the history of the Weimar era.