What do you think?
Rate this book
Margin of Life
Photographs by Cornell Capa. Text by J. Mayone Stycos . 8vo pp. 192 Brossura (wrappers) Ottimo (Fine)
187 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
2 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 10, 2018
Margin of Life is regarded as a classic, most often as a photodocumentary classic, evident in Cornell Capa appearing as the lead author instead of J. Mayone Stycos, for a book that is largely an academic treatise on the demographics and economics of Latin America, using El Salvador and Honduras as case studies. For me this dual nature is a fortunate coincidence with two of my interests.
Cornell Capa’s photography in MoL is interesting but not particularly astounding. The reproduction quality is poor. His dark & moody scenes appear in print as just black blobs. I would love to see the original properly printed photographs. Also, considering that the photography was intended as an equal partner to the text, it is surprising that there are no captions. The work suffers for this omission.
Stycos’s text, on the other hand, is a documentary home run. The analysis is solidly based on metrics and hundreds of interviews. Although published in 1974, it is worth reading now as providing insight into what has led to today’s largely unfortunate state of affairs in Latin America (although one could easily go back to the dawn of the 20th century and consider United Fruit for such understanding as well). The first sentence reads, “This is neither a happy nor a hopeful book” (p. 5) and Stycos marshals plenty of evidence to support that assertion. Later he quotes Victor Alba: “This fact, whether expressed in Marxist terms, Keynesian terms, ECLA terms, or theosophical terms, may be reduced to a single clear point: Latin America is moving backward…” (p. 172) Few can argue with that prediction from 1965.
It’s clear that Margin of Life was set in the mold of You Have Seen Their Faces by Margaret Bourke-White and writer Erskine Caldwell; and perhaps Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Walker Evans and writer James Agee. However, I can’t recommend this book for the photography even if it is a classic. To make MoL a worthwhile acquisition, I suggest you have an interest in social justice and the recent history of Latin America.
Cornell Capa’s photography in MoL is interesting but not particularly astounding. The reproduction quality is poor. His dark & moody scenes appear in print as just black blobs. I would love to see the original properly printed photographs. Also, considering that the photography was intended as an equal partner to the text, it is surprising that there are no captions. The work suffers for this omission.
Stycos’s text, on the other hand, is a documentary home run. The analysis is solidly based on metrics and hundreds of interviews. Although published in 1974, it is worth reading now as providing insight into what has led to today’s largely unfortunate state of affairs in Latin America (although one could easily go back to the dawn of the 20th century and consider United Fruit for such understanding as well). The first sentence reads, “This is neither a happy nor a hopeful book” (p. 5) and Stycos marshals plenty of evidence to support that assertion. Later he quotes Victor Alba: “This fact, whether expressed in Marxist terms, Keynesian terms, ECLA terms, or theosophical terms, may be reduced to a single clear point: Latin America is moving backward…” (p. 172) Few can argue with that prediction from 1965.
It’s clear that Margin of Life was set in the mold of You Have Seen Their Faces by Margaret Bourke-White and writer Erskine Caldwell; and perhaps Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Walker Evans and writer James Agee. However, I can’t recommend this book for the photography even if it is a classic. To make MoL a worthwhile acquisition, I suggest you have an interest in social justice and the recent history of Latin America.
Displaying 1 of 1 review