What do you think?
Rate this book
Amerikanske billeder
A personal journey through the American underclass.
304 pages
First published January 1, 1977
11 people are currently reading
211 people want to read
About the author
Jacob Holdt
12 books5 followersJacob Holdt is a Danish photographer, writer and lecturer. His mammoth work, American Pictures, gained international fame in 1977 for its effective photographic revelations about the hardships of America's lower classes.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 24, 2008
In the early seventies, a danish vagabond hippie with a short hair-cut-wig traveled around the United States, Canada and beyond looking at what was going on. His parents soon sent him a camera--after hearing his reports of poverty, starvation, continuing slavery and the "system"--because they didn't believe him. He ended up taking over 15,000 pictures, and living on the road for many years, never taking a job, always hitchiking and staying with those he met.
At the end of the forward he states "..(S)tart small. Invite every single hitchiker or tourist home, not to speak of others who have a need for a roof over their heads or human togetherness. You will discover they are far more interesting than books like this one. And if you already have all your floor space filled up or for other reasons are not able to have them staying with you, then please send them to me." and then he puts his address and phone number. It is impossible for me to distill what this book is and does..Part photo essay with long sections of excerpts of letters written during his travels and then commentary. He falls in love with many he stays with-physically and emotionally-with women and men and children. He alternately loves and hates america, loves and hates white people and money and even the system he ends up being both a part of and a strong voice against.The photos are somehow almost secondary--even though that is what this is supposed to be--a showcase of his work, which is gritty, amateurish, sad, beautiful, moving, fetishising, overdone and voyeuristic.
At the end of the forward he states "..(S)tart small. Invite every single hitchiker or tourist home, not to speak of others who have a need for a roof over their heads or human togetherness. You will discover they are far more interesting than books like this one. And if you already have all your floor space filled up or for other reasons are not able to have them staying with you, then please send them to me." and then he puts his address and phone number. It is impossible for me to distill what this book is and does..Part photo essay with long sections of excerpts of letters written during his travels and then commentary. He falls in love with many he stays with-physically and emotionally-with women and men and children. He alternately loves and hates america, loves and hates white people and money and even the system he ends up being both a part of and a strong voice against.The photos are somehow almost secondary--even though that is what this is supposed to be--a showcase of his work, which is gritty, amateurish, sad, beautiful, moving, fetishising, overdone and voyeuristic.
April 29, 2011
Brilliant.
There. That's my summary of this book. Some of you may be more familiar with the book in its American incarnation, "American Pictures."
I am not always in agreement with Holdt and his, admittedly, socialist interpretation of things but that doesn't matter. This is a pictorial and written journey through a backside of American Life that cannot help but fascinate and, in a grim way, attract. It is not a matter of agreeing, but seeing things through Holdt's eyes, and I for one am very appreciative of that.
The text has been somewhat updated, to include comments on modern-day USA as well as the racism in Denmark.
Be aware that these pictures of poor Americans and the experiences Holdt shares with you are not for the squeamish.
Highly recommended.
There. That's my summary of this book. Some of you may be more familiar with the book in its American incarnation, "American Pictures."
I am not always in agreement with Holdt and his, admittedly, socialist interpretation of things but that doesn't matter. This is a pictorial and written journey through a backside of American Life that cannot help but fascinate and, in a grim way, attract. It is not a matter of agreeing, but seeing things through Holdt's eyes, and I for one am very appreciative of that.
The text has been somewhat updated, to include comments on modern-day USA as well as the racism in Denmark.
Be aware that these pictures of poor Americans and the experiences Holdt shares with you are not for the squeamish.
Highly recommended.
June 8, 2020
Denne her bog har jeg haft stående i flere år og jeg har mange gange kigget på billederne og sporadisk læst i teksterne. Men ikke før nu, har jeg fået læst bogen fra ende til anden.
Billederne i bogen taler for sig selv og teksterne er fantastiske vidnesbyrd om en fordomsfri udlændings møde med fattigdom, racisme og undertrykkelse i 70’ernes USA.
Bogen udkom første gang i 1977 og er på trods af de mere end 40 år på bagen, altså desværre fortsat højaktuel her i 2020.
Billederne i bogen taler for sig selv og teksterne er fantastiske vidnesbyrd om en fordomsfri udlændings møde med fattigdom, racisme og undertrykkelse i 70’ernes USA.
Bogen udkom første gang i 1977 og er på trods af de mere end 40 år på bagen, altså desværre fortsat højaktuel her i 2020.
July 30, 2025
så og " læste" bogen som meget ungt menneske 14 år og den gjorde i 1980 erne et meget stort indtryk på en meget ung pige, som ikke kendte den store verden... jeg forstod ikke den store " ondskab" så det var en øjenåbner... genfandt bogen mange år senere...
December 26, 2007
American socio-economic class struggle redefined. Contrasts of uber-rich to poorer than poor. Genius.
January 10, 2018
I started this book after attending one of the author’s presentations in 1980, but never finished it, as my Danish was not up to the task of reading 300 pages. So, I am completing it now.
JH's criticism about the inherent racism of liberal society’s focus on adjusting people to unjust circumstances, rather than combatting the injustice, is very true. The section on life in New York during the 70s and, especially, the photographs, wonderfully convey the atmosphere of imminent threat and denial in the air at the time.
Other parts are more questionable. JH’s notion of agency is very plastic: he sees some people purely as victims, while assuming that the operators of “the system” have it in their hands to make the needed corrections. And when JH indulges the perpetrators of overt and violent racism, he leaves me lost and confused.
Amerikanske Billeder is a decisive book. I'm glad I finally finished it.
JH's criticism about the inherent racism of liberal society’s focus on adjusting people to unjust circumstances, rather than combatting the injustice, is very true. The section on life in New York during the 70s and, especially, the photographs, wonderfully convey the atmosphere of imminent threat and denial in the air at the time.
Other parts are more questionable. JH’s notion of agency is very plastic: he sees some people purely as victims, while assuming that the operators of “the system” have it in their hands to make the needed corrections. And when JH indulges the perpetrators of overt and violent racism, he leaves me lost and confused.
Amerikanske Billeder is a decisive book. I'm glad I finally finished it.
January 19, 2021
He was one of the parents in a daycare, where I was used to work. Quiet, exhumed intelligence. And that book, the first one. When you have lived in a predominantly African American dormitory next to the projects, you understand Mr Holdt's fascination...I could not the book down. I was visiting a friend's house who hadn't read it. And they were startled that I began reading and wouldn't stop to or drink. So poignant about diet too. Too many carbohydrates, because the poor can't afford protein in the daily diet, leads to obesity...
And the girl who teaches him how to eat sweet clay. Beautiful!
And the girl who teaches him how to eat sweet clay. Beautiful!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 18, 2022
AMERICAN PICTURES chronicles Danish vagabond Jacob Holdt who journeyed through America's poverty and hypocrisy. The title of the book references the most striking part of the book, hundreds and hundreds of photographs chronicling the hundreds of lives he was invited into as he crisscrossed early to mid 1970's America. Despite his not having an experienced eye, many of the photos are quite beautiful in their execution but the power comes from the content. Images of ghetto street life that catch moments in between other moments where quick decisions are called for to either just move the day along or end a life. Other pictures are more like life portraits where the subject is condensed in a moment captured amidst the rubble of a distraught life. The photos take up about half of this slightly over-sized book, the other half is text cobbled together from letters he wrote during his travels and episodic narrative pieces mixed with political polemics written years afterward. The scenes range from a crime in action to people holding each other while simply trying to make a life to other people so soul crushed by obliterating poverty that they have decided to just lay in the street and wait for death. The pictures pierce the skin, the narrative opens a wound that is not allowed to close for the entire book and even after.
I am approximately twice as old as I was when I first read this book. I was curious if I would feel about it now the way my much younger eyes and heart did back them. The book was quite an eye-opener for this pasty faced child of a southern Californian Suburb. While I still consider the book something everyone should read--it will leave virtually anyone angry and heartbroken--it doesn't scan for me quite the same as it did when I read it in the 80's. I was about the same age when I read this originally as the author was during his travels. My amazement at what he was willing to do at that age, willing to see and experience things that scared me to even read about allowed him license to go un-criticized for his short comings. His process of vagabonding required he always say yes so as not to offend or alienate (including partaking in a lot of sexual activity--often not activity he would have chosen) and also not to intervene in developing situations for the same reason. These strategies allowed him access to people and places that he might never have seen otherwise. Even now I accept that--but not to the same degree I did 25 years ago.
While he freely admits many of his shortcomings, including that ultimately he is a privileged white guy profiting from the abject misery of others. there are portions of the book that actually hurt me in ways he did not intend. He created this escape for himself--there were several situations in the book where his inaction contributed to devastating events and his narration plays out the events such that he says something like, "only much later did I realize what was happening." Possible but his street smarts seem to desert him when convenient. As densely packed as his experience was, his "ability" to remain inactive in certain situations is upsetting and boggling--two in particular. While at a poor family funeral following a sudden death, his decision to remain detached while his "friend" grew crazed with grief contributed to her emotional collapse that night and possibly for all her remaining nights. And while working with "one of his best friends" jail house rights activist Popeye Jackson whose life was known to be under constant threat, the author gets a phone call warning him not to get in a car with Popeye that night. Does he attempt to warn Popeye that something might be up. Never occurs to him, until later, and Popeye and a passenger are executed in that car that night. The author only comments how close he came to being in that car. Then there is an event of action and inaction. Despite all he's seen, and this is years into his travels, he decides to get married and settle within the hellish ghetto trap without any resources or plans whatsoever. He marries a black woman which only puts a bigger target on both of their backs. And his inability to cope with the situation (trying to survive on blood donation money) he should have known not to choose leads to misery and grief, demolishes their relationship and almost removes his wife from the list of those who still want to survive.
These are all things, human responsibilities, that I feel much stronger nearing fifty than I did at 23. Despite how valid I feel his analysis of ghetto life simply being a grinding continuance of the slavery structure in America and how that extends to the extermination of blacks through poverty, starvation, limited education, drug scape-goating, prisons as the new ghetto, my anger and frustration has grown because of the author. Granted he was young but he had to be a lot older after years of that intensity. Also, it is nice that he has funneled much of the profits from his books and speaking tours into charitable endeavors--he speaks at the end of the book about projects he is working on in Africa. If he cops to his white self profiting from the misery of others--shouldn't he have sought a way to give more directly back to those he exploited. You can probably guess that I finished this book about five minutes ago. My cranky old man tirade aside, this book is definitely worth your time.
I am approximately twice as old as I was when I first read this book. I was curious if I would feel about it now the way my much younger eyes and heart did back them. The book was quite an eye-opener for this pasty faced child of a southern Californian Suburb. While I still consider the book something everyone should read--it will leave virtually anyone angry and heartbroken--it doesn't scan for me quite the same as it did when I read it in the 80's. I was about the same age when I read this originally as the author was during his travels. My amazement at what he was willing to do at that age, willing to see and experience things that scared me to even read about allowed him license to go un-criticized for his short comings. His process of vagabonding required he always say yes so as not to offend or alienate (including partaking in a lot of sexual activity--often not activity he would have chosen) and also not to intervene in developing situations for the same reason. These strategies allowed him access to people and places that he might never have seen otherwise. Even now I accept that--but not to the same degree I did 25 years ago.
While he freely admits many of his shortcomings, including that ultimately he is a privileged white guy profiting from the abject misery of others. there are portions of the book that actually hurt me in ways he did not intend. He created this escape for himself--there were several situations in the book where his inaction contributed to devastating events and his narration plays out the events such that he says something like, "only much later did I realize what was happening." Possible but his street smarts seem to desert him when convenient. As densely packed as his experience was, his "ability" to remain inactive in certain situations is upsetting and boggling--two in particular. While at a poor family funeral following a sudden death, his decision to remain detached while his "friend" grew crazed with grief contributed to her emotional collapse that night and possibly for all her remaining nights. And while working with "one of his best friends" jail house rights activist Popeye Jackson whose life was known to be under constant threat, the author gets a phone call warning him not to get in a car with Popeye that night. Does he attempt to warn Popeye that something might be up. Never occurs to him, until later, and Popeye and a passenger are executed in that car that night. The author only comments how close he came to being in that car. Then there is an event of action and inaction. Despite all he's seen, and this is years into his travels, he decides to get married and settle within the hellish ghetto trap without any resources or plans whatsoever. He marries a black woman which only puts a bigger target on both of their backs. And his inability to cope with the situation (trying to survive on blood donation money) he should have known not to choose leads to misery and grief, demolishes their relationship and almost removes his wife from the list of those who still want to survive.
These are all things, human responsibilities, that I feel much stronger nearing fifty than I did at 23. Despite how valid I feel his analysis of ghetto life simply being a grinding continuance of the slavery structure in America and how that extends to the extermination of blacks through poverty, starvation, limited education, drug scape-goating, prisons as the new ghetto, my anger and frustration has grown because of the author. Granted he was young but he had to be a lot older after years of that intensity. Also, it is nice that he has funneled much of the profits from his books and speaking tours into charitable endeavors--he speaks at the end of the book about projects he is working on in Africa. If he cops to his white self profiting from the misery of others--shouldn't he have sought a way to give more directly back to those he exploited. You can probably guess that I finished this book about five minutes ago. My cranky old man tirade aside, this book is definitely worth your time.
June 4, 2018
I'm not sure if this is the most egregious case of poverty porn I've ever seen or one of the more brilliant visual documents of America's underclass. This Danish vagabond hitchhiker seems to have earned his access, and the connections he makes with people appear genuine. The resulting avalanche of raw photographic evidence is certainly eye-opening, ever interesting, and genuinely shocking in places.
January 22, 2024
I was in the process of writing a review for this when this damn app crashed. Then it erased half of what I wrote. Thanks
I want to delete this review and start over but I guess I can't (thanks).
I may or may not get around to submitting a revised review, but for now it's an amazing (if difficult) read. A very important work the likes of which I have never encountered.
I want to delete this review and start over but I guess I can't (thanks).
I may or may not get around to submitting a revised review, but for now it's an amazing (if difficult) read. A very important work the likes of which I have never encountered.
August 14, 2024
My brother turned me onto this book after he saw the authors presentation at UW-Madison. I followed the authors example and had similar experiences and came to similar conclusions. A very important book in my life and I've recently been reminded it is for one of my best friends as well 34 years after we connected through our appreciation of American Pictures.
April 8, 2022
One of my absolute favorite books, the Danish vagabond author and Jesus-Christ lookalike hitchhiked around the US, selling his blood to buy more camera film, befriending and staying with bums and poor people, and garnering an incredible amount of wisdom along the way.
August 12, 2024
If Jesus was to write a book in 20th century America, I think it would look a lot like this one.
June 11, 2013
"American Pictures" is a wild book that’s all shock and awe and freakshow...the book is a fucked-up wacky look at America by a guy who makes a habit of jumping into bed with his subjects and hanging out at cross burnings with the Ku Klux Klan. The dude has love and respect for all people, in a Jesus kind of way, and he wears a beard braided down to his belly button in order to let everyone know that he’s a weirdo too. -- Lisa Anne Auerbach on "American Pictures"
Read Lisa Anne Auerbach's full review of "American Pictures" here: http://theartbookreview.org/2012/08/2...
Read Lisa Anne Auerbach's full review of "American Pictures" here: http://theartbookreview.org/2012/08/2...
August 4, 2007
I have the hardcover and bought it in 1986 when Jacob Holdt came to the University of Texas with it. VERY MOVING at the time and eye opening to the class issues in the USA. Ah, America. Interesting look at us from an foreigners point of view.
See Amazon reviews :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cust...
See Amazon reviews :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cust...
November 26, 2007
Amazing, depressing and important!
January 9, 2008
Devastating portrait of American racism and classism.
April 16, 2013
actually, think i wanna give it a 3.5 - the pictures and prose are a little rambling and didactic. nice book, but i prefer the Steidl reprint that focuses on the photographs.
May 26, 2013
Fascinating visual tour of family homes in different socio-economic groups, contrasting extreme affluence/poverty disparity in the US.
August 28, 2023
Incredible book.
bøgernes-verden
October 12, 2018USA
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews