As a novelist, essayist, and cultural historian, John Berger is a writer of
dazzling eloquence and arresting insight whose work amounts to a subtle,
powerful critique of the canons of our civilization. In About Looking he
explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see.
How do the animals we look at in zoos remind us of a relationship between man
and beast all but lost in the twentieth century? What is it about looking at war
photographs that doubles their already potent violence? How do the nudes of
Rodin betray the threats to his authority and potency posed by