David Goldblatt Book order

The critically acclaimed global story of football in the twenty-first century.

Accompanied by some of his lesser-known photographs, this distilled dialogue is drawn directly from the recordings of a roving conversation with David Goldblatt three months before his death in June 2018. Goldblatt was born in Randfontein—a mining town on the Witwatersrand gold reef—in 1930, the grandson of Lithuanian-Jewish migrants who settled in South Africa after escaping persecution in Europe. After the death of his father in 1962, Goldblatt sold the family clothing business to become a full-time photographer. Describing himself as “a self-appointed observer and critic of the society into which I was born,” he photographed the people, landscapes and structures of South Africa under apartheid and its persistent aftermath. In this candid conversation with writer Alexandra Dodd, Goldblatt shares his views about land and landscape, the dangerous lure of repetition in portrait photography, Johannesburg, the solipsism of life as a photographer, staying sharp, his visceral intolerance of censorship, his abiding interest in structures and his observation of instances of dominion under democracy, among other key themes.

David Goldblatt (1930–2018) began working on Some Afrikaners Photographed (1975) in 1963. He had sold his father’s clothing store where he worked, and become a full-time photographer. The ruling Afrikaner National Party―many of its leaders and members had supported the Nazis in the World War II―was firming its grip on the country in the face of black resistance. Yet Goldblatt was drawn not to the events of the time but to “the quiet and commonplace where nothing ‘happened’ and yet all was contained and immanent.” Making these photos he explored his ambivalence toward the Afrikaners he knew from his father’s store. Most, he guessed, were National Party voters, yet he experienced them as “austere, upright, unaffected people of rare generosity of spirit and earthy humor.” Their potency and contradictions moved and disturbed him; their influence pervaded his life. The book includes an essay by famed South African writer Antjie Krog.

The origins of this book lie in David Goldblatt's simple observation that many of his fellow South Africans, regardless of their race and class, are the victims of often violent crime. "I have asked myself," says Goldblatt, "not least in the fear and fury of holdups with knives and guns, who are you? Are you monsters? Are you 'ordinary' people--if there are such? How did you come to do this? What are your lives?" And so began in 2008 Ex Offenders at the Scene of Crime, for which Goldblatt photographed criminal offenders and alleged offenders at the place that was probably life-changing for them and their victims: the scene of the crime or arrest. Each portrait is accompanied by the subject's written story in his or her own words, for many a cathartic experience and the first opportunity to recount events without being judged. To ensure the integrity of his undertaking, Goldblatt paid each of his subjects 800 rand for permission to photograph and interview them, and any profit from the project will be donated to the rehabilitation of offenders. Ex Offenders also features Goldblatt's portraits and interviews of black subjects in West Bromwich, England, made in collaboration with the community arts project Multistory

The definitive sporting, social and political history of the modern Olympic Games, the world that made them and the world they helped to shape.

Exploring the evolution of the Summer and Winter Games, this book delves into their transformation into a global phenomenon. It examines the interplay between these events and significant world occurrences, shedding light on their cultural impact and the reasons behind their immense popularity. Through this lens, readers will gain insight into the historical significance and emotional connections that make the Games a cherished experience for millions worldwide.

WINNER of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2015 In the last two decades football in Britain has made the transition from a peripheral dying sport to the very centre of our popular culture, from an economic basket-case to a booming entertainment industry. What does it mean when football becomes so central to our private and political lives? Has it enriched us or impoverished us? In this sparkling book David Goldblatt argues that no social phenomenon tracks the momentous economic, social and political changes of the post-Thatcherite era in a more illuminating manner than football, and no cultural practice sheds more light on the aspirations and attitudes of our long boom and now calamitous bust. A must-read for the thinking football fan, The Game of Our Lives will appeal to readers of Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby and Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson. It will also be relished by readers of British social history such as Austerity Britain by David Kynaston. 'Brilliantly incisive. Goldblatt is not merely the best football historian writing today, he is possibly the best there has ever been. Goldblatt's book could hardly be more impressive' Sunday Times

"In Boksburg was published in 1982 as one of the earlier photobooks made in South Africa. David Goldblatt, himself from a white background and a critical observer of the dynamics inherent in the racist set-up of his native country, had become interested in capturing the "wholly uneventful flow of commonplace, orderly life" of the white population around him. Boksburg, a legally white-only town on the eastern periphery of Johannesburg which was heavily dependent on black labor, seemed to fit best his purposes, and between 1979 and 1980 he recorded everyday scenes in the streets, shops, clubs, churches, the municipality, homes, gardens and cemetery, choosing a fly-on-the-wall approach. Despite its nuanced complexity, the essay was rejected by Optima magazine which had commissioned it. Several photographs have been added to this Steidl edition, and it contains a new essay by Sean O'Toole, providing keen insight into the history of the book and the story behind the photographs and their subjects."--Publisher

Following a series of portraits of his compatriots made in the early 1970s, photographer David Goldblatt, for a very short and intense period of time, naturally turned to focusing on peoples’ particulars and individual body languages “as affirmations or embodiments of their selves.” Goldblatt’s affinity was no accident: Working at his father’s men’s outfitting store in the 1950s, his awareness of posture, gesture and proportion— technical as it was—formed early and would accompany him throughout his life. In this series we see hands resting on laps, crossed legs, the curved backs of sleepers on a lawn at midday, their fingers and feet relaxed, pausing from their usual occupations. This deeply contemplative work is framed by Ingrid de Kok’s poetry. The photographs in Particulars were taken beginning in 1975, and the first edition of the book was published by Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, in 2003. Goldblatt has revised Particulars for this new Steidl edition.