Icons: 200 Men and Women Who Have Made a Difference

Rating:
Summary: Definitely a view of the last century through people
Review: Icons: 200 Men and Women Who Have Made a Difference by Barbara Cady (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishing) A dramatic, distinguished record, Icons is a powerful and provocative look at the giants of our time-the groundbreakers, thought-provokers, visionaries, tyrants, trendsetters, and style-makers who have left an indelible mark on our world. The culmination of ten years' research on the part of author Barbara Cady and photo editor jean-Jacques Naudet, it features two hundred of our century's most recognizable faces-individuals who have helped form our modern sensibilities, for better or worse: men like John F. Kennedy, Albert Einstein, Elvis Presley, Mao Zedong, and Pablo Picasso; women like Marilyn Monroe, Margaret Thatcher, Aretha Franklin, Amelia Earhart, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

A lavish album, Icons presents an extraordinarily wide selection of people chosen by a panel of more than sixty international leaders in the arts, sciences, politics, fashion, and technology. Barbara Cady's lively and probing biographies tell the fascinating stories behind these individuals' great accomplishments, exploring the views, personal backgrounds, and dramatic contributions each "icon" has made. Through Cady's treatment, the politician, philosopher, scientist, artist, athlete, and entertainer is presented in his or her unique greatness-or infamy.

The rare black-and-white photographs in Icons establish the book's unparalleled visual impact. They are by turns elegiac and haunting, celebratory and enchanting-all are arresting portraits of the century's most familiar faces caught in unfamiliar and revealing lights. Culled from archives around the world, the images in Icons represent the best of modern photography, with works by such masters as Henri Cartier-Bresson himself one of the icons), Helmut Newton, Cecil Beaton, and Robert Capa.

Powerful, intriguing, and informative, Icons is a visually stunning, historically sweeping work, destined to become a collector's item.
The two hundred individuals included in Icons of the Twentieth Century were chosen with the help of a multi-national Board of Advisors, respected leaders in the arts and sciences, in politics, publishing, education, fashion, entertainment and technology. Asked to base their deletions, nominations and rankings on their following definition of an icon: "Individuals whose names and faces have impacted us all and whose deeds-for good or ill-have literally shaped the course of modern history." When the ballots were tallied, about fifteen percent of the 200-name list-the nominations which garnered only a few votes each-fell at the thin end of the statistical bell curve. It was here that the combined efforts of the author, the publisher and the project's editors and researchers were called into service.
No grouping, of course, can ever be complete, nor can there be any objective criteria for hierarchical importance-not even for who is included and who is not. Questions will immediately arise: Why Nasser and not Khomeni? Why not Idi Amin, whose face came to symbolize the destruction of Africa in the post-colonial period, or Kwame Nkuma, whose independent Ghana initially offered a better hope for a continent in turmoil? Why not Konrad Adenauer, who out of the ruins of the Third Reich established the beginnings of post-World War democracy in Germany? And why Emperor Hirohito and not Tojo whose leadership of Japan may have had more to do with World War II in Asia than the imperial family? In the end, it would have been impossible to include every famous political leader of the century without eliminating key individuals in, say, music or literature.
Acknowledging that in this century government leaders-whether mass executioners or sun-kings-ipso facto dominated the world stage, it was decided they would not overrun Icons.
There were many others who made us think differently about our world-originals like Alfred Kinsey, Buckminster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan-who were not included. In some cases, it was because heir faces were simply not as recognizable as others, an important consideration because of the book's defining concept of eikon, or image. A similar point can be made for many of the century's innovators, individuals whose inventions-the television, the computer, the jet engine, the Pill, penicillin-are much more well known than they are. But Icons was about people not things.
Given that the major categories of human endeavor were to be represented, choice was difficult when there were too many candidates in one category, which was often the case. Why Nureyev and not also Nijinsky or Balanchine? Why Billie Holiday and not also Bessie Smith and Ella Fitzgerald? Marcel Proust and not also Thomas Mann and William Faulkner? Why Babe Ruth and not Joe DiMaggio? Why not dozens of other high profile sports stars and performers, all iconic in their way due to the development of mass media in our century? Behind each inclusion and exclusion lie endless arguments. But the selection made at the end of the day is at best a selection.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely a view of the last century through people
Review: Icons: 200 Men and Women Who Have Made a Difference by Barbara Cady (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishing) A dramatic, distinguished record, Icons is a powerful and provocative look at the giants of our time-the groundbreakers, thought-provokers, visionaries, tyrants, trendsetters, and style-makers who have left an indelible mark on our world. The culmination of ten years' research on the part of author Barbara Cady and photo editor jean-Jacques Naudet, it features two hundred of our century's most recognizable faces-individuals who have helped form our modern sensibilities, for better or worse: men like John F. Kennedy, Albert Einstein, Elvis Presley, Mao Zedong, and Pablo Picasso; women like Marilyn Monroe, Margaret Thatcher, Aretha Franklin, Amelia Earhart, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

A lavish album, Icons presents an extraordinarily wide selection of people chosen by a panel of more than sixty international leaders in the arts, sciences, politics, fashion, and technology. Barbara Cady's lively and probing biographies tell the fascinating stories behind these individuals' great accomplishments, exploring the views, personal backgrounds, and dramatic contributions each "icon" has made. Through Cady's treatment, the politician, philosopher, scientist, artist, athlete, and entertainer is presented in his or her unique greatness-or infamy.

The rare black-and-white photographs in Icons establish the book's unparalleled visual impact. They are by turns elegiac and haunting, celebratory and enchanting-all are arresting portraits of the century's most familiar faces caught in unfamiliar and revealing lights. Culled from archives around the world, the images in Icons represent the best of modern photography, with works by such masters as Henri Cartier-Bresson himself one of the icons), Helmut Newton, Cecil Beaton, and Robert Capa.

Powerful, intriguing, and informative, Icons is a visually stunning, historically sweeping work, destined to become a collector's item.
The two hundred individuals included in Icons of the Twentieth Century were chosen with the help of a multi-national Board of Advisors, respected leaders in the arts and sciences, in politics, publishing, education, fashion, entertainment and technology. Asked to base their deletions, nominations and rankings on their following definition of an icon: "Individuals whose names and faces have impacted us all and whose deeds-for good or ill-have literally shaped the course of modern history." When the ballots were tallied, about fifteen percent of the 200-name list-the nominations which garnered only a few votes each-fell at the thin end of the statistical bell curve. It was here that the combined efforts of the author, the publisher and the project's editors and researchers were called into service.
No grouping, of course, can ever be complete, nor can there be any objective criteria for hierarchical importance-not even for who is included and who is not. Questions will immediately arise: Why Nasser and not Khomeni? Why not Idi Amin, whose face came to symbolize the destruction of Africa in the post-colonial period, or Kwame Nkuma, whose independent Ghana initially offered a better hope for a continent in turmoil? Why not Konrad Adenauer, who out of the ruins of the Third Reich established the beginnings of post-World War democracy in Germany? And why Emperor Hirohito and not Tojo whose leadership of Japan may have had more to do with World War II in Asia than the imperial family? In the end, it would have been impossible to include every famous political leader of the century without eliminating key individuals in, say, music or literature.
Acknowledging that in this century government leaders-whether mass executioners or sun-kings-ipso facto dominated the world stage, it was decided they would not overrun Icons.
There were many others who made us think differently about our world-originals like Alfred Kinsey, Buckminster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan-who were not included. In some cases, it was because heir faces were simply not as recognizable as others, an important consideration because of the book's defining concept of eikon, or image. A similar point can be made for many of the century's innovators, individuals whose inventions-the television, the computer, the jet engine, the Pill, penicillin-are much more well known than they are. But Icons was about people not things.
Given that the major categories of human endeavor were to be represented, choice was difficult when there were too many candidates in one category, which was often the case. Why Nureyev and not also Nijinsky or Balanchine? Why Billie Holiday and not also Bessie Smith and Ella Fitzgerald? Marcel Proust and not also Thomas Mann and William Faulkner? Why Babe Ruth and not Joe DiMaggio? Why not dozens of other high profile sports stars and performers, all iconic in their way due to the development of mass media in our century? Behind each inclusion and exclusion lie endless arguments. But the selection made at the end of the day is at best a selection.