War, romance, ide­al­ism, cor­rup­tion, pol­i­tics, ambi­tion, dis­placed per­sons, artists, pho­tog­ra­phers, writ­ers — this his­tor­i­cal explo­ration of the cre­ation of pho­to­jour­nal­ism is crammed with enough dra­ma to fill a score of movies, beyond the many that have already depict­ed the shat­tered world before and dur­ing World War II and the Span­ish Civ­il War. Abun­dant­ly illus­trat­ed with black and white pho­tos by Robert Capa (née Andre Fried­man), Ger­da Taro (née Ger­ta Poho­rylle), and oth­ers, the book chron­i­cles the romance of these tal­ent­ed and dar­ing young Jew­ish refugees against a back­drop of exhil­a­ra­tion and despair. The sto­ry and work of anoth­er star pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the era, Chim (née David Szymin), who was a col­league and close friend of Taro and Capa, also fea­ture promi­nent­ly in the book.

His­to­ry has nev­er seemed so alive. Lyri­cal­ly and lucid­ly writ­ten, exten­sive­ly researched and gen­er­ous­ly doc­u­ment­ed — with an entire sec­tion devot­ed to appen­dices, a time­line, sources and more—Eyes of the World will encour­age stu­dents to pur­sue and record their own fas­ci­na­tion with history.