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A Life Beyond Limits
W.W. Norton & Co.
October 2009
On Sale: October 19, 2009
560 pages
ISBN: 0393057305
EAN: 9780393057300
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
Dorothea Langeβs photographs define how we remember the Depression generation; now an evocative biography defines her creative struggles and enduring legacy. We all know Dorothea Langeβs iconic photosβthe βMigrant Motherβ holding her child, the gaunt men forlornly waiting in breadlinesβbut few know the arc of her extraordinary life. In this sweeping account, renowned historian Linda Gordon charts Langeβs journey from polio-ridden child to wife and mother, to San Francisco portrait photographer, to chronicler of the Great Depression and World War II. Gordon uses Langeβs life to anchor a moving social history of twentieth-century America, re-creating the bohemian world of San Francisco, the Dust Bowl, and the Japanese American internment camps. She explores Langeβs growing radicalization as she embraced the democratic power of the camera, and she examines Langeβs entire body of work, reproducing more than one hundred images, many of them previously unseen and some of them formerly suppressed. Lange reminds us that beauty can be found in unlikely places, and that to respond to injustice, we must first simply learn how to see it. 128 photos.
 Media BuzzNewsHour with Jim Lehrer - November 23, 2009
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