The genius of photography : how photography has changed our lives

Accompanying the first major television history of this ever more influential art form, this landmark book explores the key events and the key images that have marked the development of photography.

At the heart of the book is a quest to understand what makes a truly great photograph.

What is it that makes a photograph by Nan Goldin or Henri Cartier-Bresson stand out among the millions of others taken by all of us every single day?

Why are some photographs elevated to the status of art - even after the event? "The Story of Photography" examines the evolution of photography in its wider context: social, political, economic, technological and artistic.

It brings a critical perspective and a strong aesthetic sense to the subject, but above all it is primarily a narrative history.

Beginning with the earliest days of the photograph in the 1840s and ending with an examination of the state of photography today and the effect that the 'digital revolution' will have, changing not only how we look at a photograph, but what it is in a physical sense.

The book examines all the different genres of photography from art, news and reportage, landscape and portrait photography. It also tells the great stories behind many of the world's most iconic photographs and reveals the extraordinary characters - from Margaret Bourke-White to Cindy Sherman and from Louis Daguerre to Robert Capa who have made and defined this art form. And it explores the forces and contemporary resonances that have given these images their meaning and power.