The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was the most
universally observed news event in human history. That the
event was so visual is owing to the people who, facing
disaster, took photographs of it: imperiled office workers,
horrified tourists, professional photographers risking their
lives. Conceived by Osama bin Laden as the toppling of an
image of America right before the world's eyes, the tragedy
swiftly came to be defined by photography, as families
posted snapshots of their loved ones, police sought
terrorists' faces on security-camera videotapes, and
officials recorded the devastation and identified the
dead.
In Watching the World Change, David
Friend tells the stories behind fifty of the images that
altered our sense of our world forever--from the
happenstance shots taken by bystanders as the first tower
was struck to the scene of three firemen raising the Stars
and Stripes at the site. He tells unforgettable stories of
photographers and rescuers, victims and survivors. He shows
how advances in television, digital photography, and the
Internet produced an effect whereby more than two billion
people saw the terrible events as they happened. He explores
the controversy about whether images of 9/11 are redemptive
or exploitative; and he shows how photographs help us to
witness, to grieve, and finally to understand the unimaginable.
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