Light on Darkness?: Missionary Photography of Africa in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780802865243)

In its earliest days, photography was seen as depicting its subjects with such objectivity as to be inherently free of ideological bias. Today we are rightly more skeptical -- at least most of the time. When it comes to photography from the past, we tend to set some of our skepticism aside. But should we?

In Light on Darkness? T. Jack Thompson, a leading historian of African Christianity, revisits the body of photography generated by British missionaries to sub-Saharan Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and demonstrates that much more is going on in these images than meets the eye. This volume offers a careful reassessment of missionary photographers, their photographs, and their African and European audiences. Several dozen fascinating photographs from the period are included.

Author: T. Jack Thompson
ISBN-10: 0802865240
ISBN-13: 9780802865243
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Language: English
Published: 04/20/2012
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.90d