Containing 30 essays that embody the history of photography, this collection includes contributions from Niepce, Daguerre, Fox, Talbot, Poe, Emerson, Hine, Stieglitz, and Weston, among others.

Alan Trachtenberg is the Neil Gray, Jr. professor emeritus of English and American studies at Yale University and the author of several books, including Reading American Photographs: Images As History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans and Shades of Hiawatha.