What do you think?
Rate this book
Sebastião Salgado: Exodus
Humanity on the move: Sebastiao Salgado s searing reportage of exiles, migrants, and refugees
It has been almost a generation since Sebastiao Salgado first published Exodus but the story it tells, of fraught human movement around the globe, has changed little in 16 years. The push and pull factors may shift, the nexus of conflict relocates from Rwanda to Syria, but the people who leave their homes tell the same tale: deprivation, hardship, and glimmers of hope, plotted along a journey of great psychological, as well as physical, toil.
Salgado spent six years with migrant peoples, visiting more than 35 countries to document displacement on the road, in camps, and in overcrowded city slums where new arrivals often end up. His reportage includes Latin Americans entering the United States, Jews leaving the former Soviet Union, Kosovars fleeing into Albania, the Hutu refugees of Rwanda, as well as the first boat people of Arabs and sub-Saharan Africans trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean sea. His images feature those who know where they are going and those who are simply in flight, relieved to be alive and uninjured enough to run. The faces he meets present dignity and compassion in the most bitter of circumstances, but also the many ravaged marks of violence, hatred, and greed.
With his particular eye for detail and motion, Salgado captures the heart-stopping moments of migratory movement, as much as the mass flux. There are laden trucks, crowded boats, and camps stretched out to a clouded horizon, and then there is the small, bandaged leg; the fingerprint on a page; the interview with a border guard; the bundle and baby clutched to a mother s breast. Insisting on the scale of the migrant phenomenon, Salgado also asserts, with characteristic humanism, the personal story within the overwhelming numbers. Against the indistinct faces of televised footage or the crowds caught beneath a newspaper headline, what we find here are portraits of individual identities, even in the abyss of a lost land, home, and, often, loved ones.
At the same time, Salgado also declares the commonality of the migrant situation as a shared, global experience. He summons his viewers not simply as spectators of the refugee and exile suffering, but as actors in the social and political shifts of global information, urbanization, environmental damage, and vast discrepancies in wealth, which all contribute to the migratory phenomenon. As the boats bobbing up on the Greek and Italian coastline brought migration home to Europe like no mass movement since the Second World War, Exodus cries out not only for our heightened awareness but also for responsibility and engagement. In face of the scarred bodies, the hundreds of bare feet on hot tarmac, our imperative is not to look on in compassion, but in Salgado s own words, to temper our political, economic, and environmental behaviors in a new regimen of coexistence. "
It has been almost a generation since Sebastiao Salgado first published Exodus but the story it tells, of fraught human movement around the globe, has changed little in 16 years. The push and pull factors may shift, the nexus of conflict relocates from Rwanda to Syria, but the people who leave their homes tell the same tale: deprivation, hardship, and glimmers of hope, plotted along a journey of great psychological, as well as physical, toil.
Salgado spent six years with migrant peoples, visiting more than 35 countries to document displacement on the road, in camps, and in overcrowded city slums where new arrivals often end up. His reportage includes Latin Americans entering the United States, Jews leaving the former Soviet Union, Kosovars fleeing into Albania, the Hutu refugees of Rwanda, as well as the first boat people of Arabs and sub-Saharan Africans trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean sea. His images feature those who know where they are going and those who are simply in flight, relieved to be alive and uninjured enough to run. The faces he meets present dignity and compassion in the most bitter of circumstances, but also the many ravaged marks of violence, hatred, and greed.
With his particular eye for detail and motion, Salgado captures the heart-stopping moments of migratory movement, as much as the mass flux. There are laden trucks, crowded boats, and camps stretched out to a clouded horizon, and then there is the small, bandaged leg; the fingerprint on a page; the interview with a border guard; the bundle and baby clutched to a mother s breast. Insisting on the scale of the migrant phenomenon, Salgado also asserts, with characteristic humanism, the personal story within the overwhelming numbers. Against the indistinct faces of televised footage or the crowds caught beneath a newspaper headline, what we find here are portraits of individual identities, even in the abyss of a lost land, home, and, often, loved ones.
At the same time, Salgado also declares the commonality of the migrant situation as a shared, global experience. He summons his viewers not simply as spectators of the refugee and exile suffering, but as actors in the social and political shifts of global information, urbanization, environmental damage, and vast discrepancies in wealth, which all contribute to the migratory phenomenon. As the boats bobbing up on the Greek and Italian coastline brought migration home to Europe like no mass movement since the Second World War, Exodus cries out not only for our heightened awareness but also for responsibility and engagement. In face of the scarred bodies, the hundreds of bare feet on hot tarmac, our imperative is not to look on in compassion, but in Salgado s own words, to temper our political, economic, and environmental behaviors in a new regimen of coexistence. "
431 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 13, 2017
For any one who is not familiar with Sebastião Salgado, he is a Latin American social documentary photographer and photojournalist. He has traveled all over the globe for his photographic work, capturing so many elements of life, this collection focuses on Migration.
Capturing the demographic change of the world around us, from wars, natural disasters, environmental degradation and the huge raise in the global population, following Latin Americans entering the United States, Jews leaving the former Soviet Union, Africans traveling into Europe, Kosovars fleeing into Albania, and many others. The images, when entering your mind they don't want to leave, ever. They are stunning, beautiful, heartbreaking, uncomfortable, disturbing, but most important, they are important, and rise so many questions on how the developed world should be doing far much more to help. Absolutely shot every time to perfection. He is photographic genius, a man who has touched the lives of those who live in horror and bloodshed. The scope of what he is able to capture just goes beyond words, so here I will stop.
Capturing the demographic change of the world around us, from wars, natural disasters, environmental degradation and the huge raise in the global population, following Latin Americans entering the United States, Jews leaving the former Soviet Union, Africans traveling into Europe, Kosovars fleeing into Albania, and many others. The images, when entering your mind they don't want to leave, ever. They are stunning, beautiful, heartbreaking, uncomfortable, disturbing, but most important, they are important, and rise so many questions on how the developed world should be doing far much more to help. Absolutely shot every time to perfection. He is photographic genius, a man who has touched the lives of those who live in horror and bloodshed. The scope of what he is able to capture just goes beyond words, so here I will stop.
October 28, 2025
Sobering and devastating photography.
November 2, 2012
Banker sees the effects of money and poverty in the world and becomes one of the greatest photographers of ALL TIME. You've seen many of these images before without realizing it because Salgado can make the worst conditions in the world into a beautiful composition. I had the opportunity to get a signed copy of this book when I saw him speak at Town Hall in Seattle, as well as seeing these images projected 40 ft wide on the screen. He rarely talks about the photography, but rather the subject matter. Truly a master and definitely his best book. BUY IT TODAY.
June 18, 2025
Transfixing. Hard. Absorbing.
In the 1990s Sebastião Salgado documented the history of human migration in 35 countries: people fleeing wars, genocide, poverty; people following a dream of a better life or just the hope of finding drinkable water or rudimentary medical care.
People were phagocytized by jungles of cement or dirt, deserts and seas. People were forgotten in the circles of human indifference, walking abysmal distances of miles with nothing but strength and faith to keep them going. Not even that.
The human condition in Exodus tears you apart. Each photo, in a different pamphlet, is historically and geographically contextualised, explained.
Exodus is a historical testament, a fundamental book for understanding how we got to the new century with such an embarrassing record of refugees and people possessing nothing but fear and deprivation. People with no outlooks.
Amidst the horrors of history, Salgado produced a body of work that is almost impossible to match.
And, in most of his frames, there is a light that only poets at heart can catch.
In the 1990s Sebastião Salgado documented the history of human migration in 35 countries: people fleeing wars, genocide, poverty; people following a dream of a better life or just the hope of finding drinkable water or rudimentary medical care.
People were phagocytized by jungles of cement or dirt, deserts and seas. People were forgotten in the circles of human indifference, walking abysmal distances of miles with nothing but strength and faith to keep them going. Not even that.
The human condition in Exodus tears you apart. Each photo, in a different pamphlet, is historically and geographically contextualised, explained.
Exodus is a historical testament, a fundamental book for understanding how we got to the new century with such an embarrassing record of refugees and people possessing nothing but fear and deprivation. People with no outlooks.
Amidst the horrors of history, Salgado produced a body of work that is almost impossible to match.
And, in most of his frames, there is a light that only poets at heart can catch.
March 6, 2019
Sencillamente descomunal. Las fotografías y el relato de estas. Aunque puedo comprender la crítica que en ocasiones se hace a Salgado: compaginar la belleza de esas fotos con la dureza de las vidas que relatan me genera una sensación extraña. Algo así como de culpabilidad por disfrutar del libro.
November 18, 2018
In this collection, Sebastião Salgado photographed the moving human populations of the earth. Across the globe, people move to flee war and poverty, to seek work, or to avoid famine or drought. Salgado photographs the conditions they're fleeing, the route they take and where they end up. This collection is a record of "humanity in transition" and all the issues that predicate and come along with that transition. Salgado's work is hard to view sometimes. Looking at the photos in this book was important for me and revealed the world in a new, clear, and sometimes disturbing light.
August 2, 2021
This is a well documented photography book that tell the story of human migration around the world at the end of 20 century and beginning of the 21 st century. Moreover Salgado has a book inside that explains picture by picture. I read the book every morning 4 to 6 pictures at the time and the explanation of Salgado. The book helps to understand the circumstances of migration and helps to think that as humans we need humanizing immigration laws. Most of times immigrants are criminalized and abused.
February 12, 2026
Se me ha hecho bastante desigual las partes del libro, aunque todas son buenas.
Me atrevería a decir que aquí he visto algunas de las mejores fotos de mi vida.
Muy interesante el libro y el tema también, las migraciones son un tema que me preocupa.
Recomiendo sin duda mirar si está en una biblioteca cerca de vuestra casa y echarle un ojo, puede ayudar a conocer cosas bastante importantes.
Me atrevería a decir que aquí he visto algunas de las mejores fotos de mi vida.
Muy interesante el libro y el tema también, las migraciones son un tema que me preocupa.
Recomiendo sin duda mirar si está en una biblioteca cerca de vuestra casa y echarle un ojo, puede ayudar a conocer cosas bastante importantes.
June 10, 2025
Beautiful photography, as always. But also heartbreaking and sobering. I don't often read introductions, but Salgado's words are worth reading -- and sharing.
This work ties in well with the final unit on globalization in OER World History.
Rest in power, Sebastião Salgado.
This work ties in well with the final unit on globalization in OER World History.
Rest in power, Sebastião Salgado.
January 16, 2021
Stunning collection. Need say no more.
August 15, 2007
This collection of photographs of forced human migration contains amoung the most painfully beautiful photos I have ever seen. A gift, during a time of great personal disappointment, these photos tend to remind one of their own great good fortune in being a middle class American.
September 4, 2011
This is a phenomenal volume of black and white photographs by Salgado. The documentation of refugees and their displacement is done with compassion, sensitivity, and power. If you are unfamiliar with his work you can google him but the google images don't come close to his volume of photographs!
January 31, 2016
As always, a powerful portrait of the world. Beautiful, haunting photographs with stories and descriptions to match. A little jumpy at times from one part of the world to another, but an amazing collection of how people move, responding to change and inevitably creating more.
November 15, 2020
Large-scale photographs of migrants/refugees - desperate humans trying to improve their lives.
The book is organized into 4 sections: displaced people in different locations, a specifically African section, rural flight to urban centers in Latin America, and Asia's recent giant cities.
The book is organized into 4 sections: displaced people in different locations, a specifically African section, rural flight to urban centers in Latin America, and Asia's recent giant cities.
July 11, 2008
Su mirada es magnífica
Want to Read
February 6, 2011I've been wanting to get my hands on this one forever...
July 15, 2012
Astonishing. This book opened my eyes to the refugees of my generation. I highly recommend this book.
May 12, 2021
stunning photographs: from the familial, to the teeming masses of humanity, and the horrors
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews