Arms against fury - Magnum Photographers

Arms Against Fury examines the dramatic struggle of
the Afghan people through the lens of Magnum photographers, dating back
to co-founder George Rodger's documentation of the country's role in
World War II. Ever since, Magnum's intrepid photographers have
crisscrossed the country's striking landscape from the Central Asian
steppes to the parched southern desert by way of the Hindu Kush
mountains surrounding Kabul and the adjacent Panjshir Valley.

As early as the 1950s, Eve Arnold and Marc Riboud filed unprecedented
stories from a legendary Shangri-La, showing a small kingdom struggling
for statehood against the forces of underdevelopment and unfortunate
geographic position during the Cold War. The ultimate overthrow of the
monarchy and brutal liquidation of Afghanistan's constitutional
government in 1978 heralded the arrival of Soviet-style communism.
Peasants in Nuristan rebelled immediately and initiated a jihad that was
covered first by Raymond Depardon and then by Steve McCurry, and later
by renowned photojournalist Abbas, who also focused on the progress of
the mujahedin, who eventually faced a massive Red Army invasion and
savage aerial bombardments.

The victory against the Soviets also signaled the beginning of a civil
war that began in 1992. Documented by Luc Delahaye, Christopher
Steele-Perkins, Abbas, and Steve McCurry, Afghan militias destroyed
large swathes of Kabul. The Taliban militia subdued warring factions in
1996 and proclaimed an Islamic emirate. Steele-Perkins was one of the
few journalists to report from Afghanistan during this period of
theocratic tyranny. In the wake of the September 11 attacks on the
United States, the hated Taliban were shaken from power by a loose
alliance of mujahedin backed by American forces. Yet nothing seemed to
remedy the miserable spectacle of a ruined country littered with ten
million land mines and thousands of innocent victims of the hi-tech war
on terror.

The future of Afghanistan, as depicted by Abbas, Eve Arnold, Luc
Delahaye, Thomas Dworzak, Alex Majoli, Steve McCurry, and Francesco
Zizola, remains uncertain at best.

Containing additional photographic work by Ian Berry, Elliott Erwitt,
Stuart Franklin, Philip Jones Griffiths, Susan Meiselas, and Wayne
Miller; commentary by the photographers; and several illustrated essays,
Arms Against Fury will become an indispensable reference for documentary studies, social history, and critical photography.