Vietnam: A Book of Changes

Rating:
Summary: a luminous, searching cross-section of Vietnam today
Review: Superb. Among the many books of pictures of Vietnam, this one stands out as simply smarter, prettier, more disturbing and deeper than the rest. Epstein works with images like a novelist or composer, stringing them together in long symphonic wavelike movements. The photos--of daily life deep within the country-are beautiful and upsetting at the same time. Almost impossibly, Epstein allows the complicity of the American involvement in Vietnam into the picture frame, and comments subtly, and at the same time, on his own presence as picture taker, while never losing his visual perfect pitch. A must buy for anyone interested in photography, or our legacy in Vietnam

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtless layout mars an otherwise wonderful set of photos
Review: The photographs are fine (particularly the people photographs, which I wish there were more of), but a lot of the photos are thoughtlessly printed across two pages and break apart in the middle, in the gutter (the spine where the book is bound, where one page crosses over into another). This really ruins what would otherwise be a wonderful viewing experience.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful atmosphere
Review: The pictures in this book tell a wonderful story of a country in progress and still recovering from years and years of hardship....
Epstein caught the soul of vietnam with this wonderful collection of photo's....