I Am Rich Potosi: The Mountain That Eats Men

Rating:
Summary: Visually rich documentary of history few know.
Review: Wonderful! This book which richly documents an unknown drama of history is one of the finest examples of using top quality photojournalism to enhance and enrich our knowledge of other cultures and events beyond the mundane. The photographer is one of the few who pushes himself beyond the common causing the reader to think and wonder how someone can see the world with such color and texture. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: This is a beautiful and terrifying book.
Review: You can open to any page at random in I Am Rich Potosí and be struck dumb by how much life Ferry captures in the color and light of his pictures. But only by working through the whole extraordinary sequence of photographs -- as they take you through the mines, the town, the ritual life, the homes, and even the mortality of Potosí's miners - can you appreciate the intimacy with which Ferry approaches his subjects. His pictures manage to portray the depth of the miners' culture in Potosí and at the same time unsentimentally depict the grim social conditions which make Potosí "a giant monument to the conquest of the Americas." The result is a beautiful and terrifying book.