If you really want to know what the 20th century looked like from a front-row seat at the main stage, this book will show you. Alfred Eisenstaedt, who was born in 1898 and lived until 1995, apparently didn't miss a thing. To give but a glimpse of the view he captured, this volume, published on the hundredth anniversary of his birth, includes scores of his most famous photographs. The portrait of a scowling Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Culture and Propaganda, showing exactly what educated evil looks like; a sultry Marilyn Monroe, somewhat fuzzy around the edges because the flustered photographer used the wrong film; the adorable Mary Martin (pre-Pan), girlishly singing a Cole Porter tune; Jackie Kennedy, radiant, seated between her husband and the man who would succeed him; Bertrand Russell; Martin Buber; Helen Keller; Albert Einstein; Gordon Parks; Rebecca West; Learned Hand--they're all here.

There is no way for any collection to do real justice to a photographer of Eisenstaedt's reach, but this book goes far, including not just the celebrity images but many others that give a keen sense of the times in which he lived. There is a streetwalker in knee-high boots on the Rue Saint-Denis; a polished Rolls-Royce in front of the Ritz; an aged accordionist begging for a living outside Carnegie Hall; a Mississippi fiddler.

Like those of his contemporaries Cartier-Bresson, Lartigue, and Kertész, Eisenstaedt's photographs stop you in your tracks, their meanings more complexly layered with every passing decade. Take his shot of 5- and 6-year-olds, wide-eyed and screaming at a puppet show in a Paris park in l963, just as television was beginning its long, depressing siege on childhood's imaginative realm. Or the image of women in their spring chapeaus, taking afternoon tea on the roof of the Excelsior Hotel in Florence in 1934, pretending that their pleasant world would endure. The historical resonance of such images is what makes this a thinking person's book, but of course it is possible to love it just for the celebrities, nearly all of them now gone. --Peggy Moorman

From Publishers Weekly
In 1927 Eisenstadt sold his first photograph to a Czechoslovakian newspaper; less than a decade later he was pioneering the practice of pictorial journalism for Henry Luce's Life . The rest, as this latest collection of his works attests, is history. With the help of O'Neil, director of exhibitions and vintage prints at Life , Eisenstadt has assembled a trip down memory lane that is overwhelming in historical scope and is utterly pleasurable proof of his stature as the father of photojournalism. From the outset of his career, "Eisie" focused a keen eye on topical subjects: in the 1930s he photographed Hitler, Goebbels and Mussolini, as well as Garbo, Toscanini and Bernard Shaw, and recorded the dying embers of prewar glamour in Europe. In the '40s and '50s his lens captured such Hollywood greats as Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren, along with writers W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot. Between portraits of the famous reproduced here are equally recognizable images of anonymity: a sailor grabbing a Victory Day kiss at Times Square, children shrieking at a Parisian puppeteer's show. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This elegant, informal survey of Eisenstaedt's achievements in photography, based on a retrospective exhibition, consists of a brief, anecdotal essay by Bryan Holme, followed by well-reproduced photographs with captions explaining of whom, where, when, and sometimes how each picture was made. These often-familiar pictures were culled from a file of 10,000 prints at Life magazine (for which Eisenstaedt has worked from the first issue in 1936 to the present day) and the photographer's own collection of 280,000 images. Loosely grouped by subject--writers and scholars, actors, politicians, high society, children, rural scenes, patterns and abstractions, etc.--they reveal the astounding breadth of his career and his talent for capturing the telling gesture and revealing moment. However, the lack of an index, chronology, and bibliography of publications and exhibitions makes the book less useful than it might otherwise have been. Recommended for photography collections.- Kathleen Collins, Great Barrington, Mass.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

ANNOTATION

Alfred Eisenstaedt is one of the legendary photographers of this century and a pioneer in the field of photojournalism. Remembrances presents a wide-ranging look at his work from his first days in Germany in the 1930s through his long career at LIFE magazine.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Remembrances presents a wide-ranging look at this legendary photographer's pioneering work in the field of photojournalism, from his first days in Germany in the 1930s through his long career at LIFE magazine, where more than 2,500 assignments led him on adventures around the world. Selected by Doris O'Neil from the archives of LIFE and from Alfred Eisenstaedt's vast personal file, the images in this book reveal the breadth of his achievement. Included are pictures of historic events such as the first meeting of Hitler and Mussolini, vivid portraits of many of the most famous people of this century - statesmen, writers, actors, scientists, artists, philosophers - and endearing, timeless vignettes of ordinary people in midcentury America and Europe. As diverse as they are, the photographs are unified by Eisenstaedt's eye and by his intuitive ability to record moments of grace, wit, and beauty in the human experience. In honor of the one hundredth anniversary of Alfred Eisenstaedt's birth, this special expanded edition of Remembrances includes a portfolio of thirty additional classic photographs by Eisenstaedt - images chosen by "Eisie" for the LIFE gallery. Many are previously unpublished in LIFE. Barbara Baker Burrows, Eisenstaedt's picture editor at LIFE for many years, contributes a foreword to this new edition.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In 1927 Eisenstadt sold his first photograph to a Czechoslovakian newspaper; less than a decade later he was pioneering the practice of pictorial journalism for Henry Luce's Life . The rest, as this latest collection of his works attests, is history. With the help of O'Neil, director of exhibitions and vintage prints at Life , Eisenstadt has assembled a trip down memory lane that is overwhelming in historical scope and is utterly pleasurable proof of his stature as the father of photojournalism. From the outset of his career, ``Eisie'' focused a keen eye on topical subjects: in the 1930s he photographed Hitler, Goebbels and Mussolini, as well as Garbo, Toscanini and Bernard Shaw, and recorded the dying embers of prewar glamour in Europe. In the '40s and '50s his lens captured such Hollywood greats as Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren, along with writers W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot. Between portraits of the famous reproduced here are equally recognizable images of anonymity: a sailor grabbing a Victory Day kiss at Times Square, children shrieking at a Parisian puppeteer's show. (Oct.)

Library Journal