The Circle of Life: Rituals from the Human Family Album

The circle of life–birth, initiation, marriage, and death–is chronicled as anthropology and as photographic moment in this big, ambitious book, edited by the director of the popular “Day in the Life” series.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote the introduction and Peter Matthiessen contributed the afterword. The large doses of corporate funding, 35,000 photo submissions by 400 photographers, and a lengthy list of academic advisors have yielded this book an exhibition, and a serial in the October 1991 issue of Life magazine. In the book, the theme of life passages in diverse cultures is best portrayed when photographs of Third World rituals are positioned next to their Western counterparts. Much will be written and spoken about this big book and the big team that constructed it, whose efforts are reminiscent of Cecil B. DeMille. Thankfully, the simple honesty and reporting of this book’s photographs remain its strength. Recommended for academic, museum, public, and school libraries.