Looking at LIFE Magazine

About this book

Looking at LIFE Magazine focuses on how the magazine in its editorial and especially its pictorial style played a leading role in shaping American national identity from the Great depression through the Vietnam War. The thirteen contributors discuss how and why Life became so popular what political and social views it reflected and projected how the editors tried to create an image of a unified and classless nation and why that vision and the magazine itself ultimately failed. In essays ranging from Lifes coverage of civil rights sexuality and the atomic bomb to its treatment of religion masculinity and the counterculture the contributors explore Lifes style and public response demonstrating the magazines important place in American cultural History.