中文简介：

摄影一直是现代的关键语言之一，随着数字革命的到来，它也成为了日常私人和公共交流中最常用的媒介。摄影也是标志着19世纪和20世纪的艺术之一——尽管学术环境抵制，不愿意接受机器制造的艺术形式——而在21世纪的早期，它在所有社会政治和文化系统的全球当代创作领域中发挥了越来越重要的作用。

本书从摄影的先驱和早期主角开始，追溯了摄影在各个领域（科学、法医和艺术）的传播，肖像画的发展，18世纪早期先锋派的出现，摄影作为记录、报道和宣传的使用，它对流行和概念艺术的贡献，走向制度化的步骤，以及最后，它最新的发展，从舞台摄影到新千年后摄影。三幅极具冲击力的视觉地图（单页和双页）为本书迷人的历史概述设定了节奏，它们被置于作者历史重建的十六个章节之中。本书还包括16个专门讨论具体技术问题的章节，以及一个全面的参考书目。

英文简介：

Photography has been one of the key languages of modernity and with the advent of the digital revolution, it has also established itself as the most used medium in everyday private and public communication. Photography is also one of the arts that have marked the 19th and 20th centuries – despite the resistance of academic milieus, reluctant to accept a machine-made form of art –, and during the early years of the 21st century it has taken on an increasingly central role in the field of global contemporary creativity within all socio-political and cultural systems.

Setting off from this medium's pioneers and early protagonists, this book traces the spread of photography in all ambits (scientific, forensic and artistic), the development of portraiture, the advent of early 18th-century avantgardes, the use of photography as record, reportage, and propaganda, its contribution to pop and conceptual art, the steps towards its institutionalisation and, lastly, its most recent developments, from staged photography to new millennium post-photography. Three high-impact visual atlases (on single and double pages) set the pace of this volume's fascinating historic overview, set among the sixteen chapters of the author's historic reconstruction. The publication also includes sixteen sections dedicated to specific technical aspects plus a comprehensive bibliography.