Gerd Hurm is Professor of American Literature and Director of the Center for American Studies at the University of Trier, Germany. He has published widely in the fields of urban, media, and gender studies, with a particular focus on American political rhetoric, realist and modernist discourses, and on post-World War II American arts and culture. He is currently researching the photography, aesthetics and curatorial politics of Edward Steichen.

Anke Reitz is a photography curator at the Centre national de l’audiovisuel (CNA) in Luxembourg and is in charge of the CNA’s Steichen Collections The Family of Man and The Bitter Years. She has written on art history and visual communication and lately her focus has been on audiovisual arts, photographic history and conservation, as well as art mediation.

Shamoon Zamir is Associate Professor of Literature and Visual Studies and Director of Akkasah: Center for Photography at New York University Abu Dhabi. He works on American literature, photography and intellectual history. He is the author of The Gift of the Face: Portraiture and Time in Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian (2014). He is also co-editor of The Photobook (I.B.Tauris, 2012).

‘This anthology of contemporary essays and historical sources is an important contribution to the growing field of exhibition history. Through critical reevaluation of The Family of Man and analyses of its international reception, the book breaks new ground with varied accounts of the show’s place in postwar culture and detailed discussion of its curatorial construction and modes of presentation.’

– Bruce Altshuler, Director, Program in Museum Studies, New York University

‘Of exhibitions of photography, The Family of Man is the one most deserving of renewed critical reflection and assessment. This volume offers exactly that, providing new perspectives and information in an effort to make us think again about what we imagined we already knew. Anyone interested in photography’s history and creative possibilities will want to read it.’

– Geoffrey Batchen, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand