...nothing less than a wholesale restatement of the contemporary political stakes of the image... -Art Review The Civil Contract of Photography does not simply delineate how meaning is contained in or created through photograph; it demonstrates precisely how meaning avoids being cheated. If there is one lesson to take from Azoulay's writing, it is that photography is ... Read morea profoundly political act-an act that is also, in the strictest sense, public. -Aperture The Civil Contract of Photography will likely be one of the most influential books to shape the contemporary inquiry of photography and public culture. -Argumentation and Advocacy ... Azoulay's central themes-state violence, violations of human rights, and the nature and potential of photographic witness-are as relevant to our own political circumstances as they are to hers. -Art in America ... this is a significant, deeply moral book that should undercut complacent thinking. Azoulay's renewal of cultural attention to the state and her view of photography that requires us to dispute prevailing interpretations of evidence must surely be welcomed as we are, once again, thrown headlong back to reality. -Steve Edwards, Times Higher Education Show Less