| Descripción y Comentario
Book DescriptionIn the years following World War II, images of comradeship, particularly of men being physically close, largely disappeared from the public record. But, as these stunning photographs attest, ordinary American men in the extraordinary circumstances of World War II were affectionate, winsome, and playful-disarmingly innocent in a time of cataclysmic peril. Led by photography giant Captain Edward J. Steichen, the U.S. Naval Aviation Photographic Unit was organized during the war to record the daily experiences of Navy men all over the world and provide newspapers and magazines with images to promote the American cause. The unit's photographers, which included Wayne Miller, Horace Bristol, Victor Jorgensen, and Barrett Gallagher, took thousands of pictures of soldiers as they relaxed, trained, prepared for the next battle, and waited. This book brings together more than 150 of those photographs, culled from the National Archives, including many that have never before been published. Whereas World War II imagery tends to be dominated by combat photography and monumental depictions of weaponry, these photographs offer a rare, intimate look at the Navy men themselves.
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Comentarios del público
 And this is how tender Maleness can be
Without a doubt this book will touch the memories and hearts of everyone who pauses to slowly peruse these casual photographs of men at sea in World War II. Without the overtones of trying to make a statement about the camaraderie that accompanies men off at war, these photographs simply follow a healthy group of sailors resting on board ship, working at their tasks, bonding in the bunk rooms and in play on the decks and the foc'sle. There is an obvious physical relationship that is transmitted in the gentlest ways, further proof that men together find the emotional and physical support so needed in the time of isolation from the world.
It is to Evan Bachner's credit that he shares this truly sensitive body of work with the public at a time when we all need to understand not only the plight of the men away at war today, but of the common threads of pansexuality that have never been a threat but only a solace in a world infected with prejudice. Grady Harp, December 2004
Fecha: 2004-12-31
 Sexual identity politics, not WWII history
If you're a naval history reader or someone who enjoys books on the "greatest generation," it's important to point out that this book is fundamentally political in nature, and apparently calculated as a sort of campy joke on the military book-buying public.
The author clearly has a political axe to grind. His biography on the jacket forthrightly states his homosexuality (not that there's anything at all wrong with that). Accordingly, every photo in the book appears to have been selected for its homoerotic suggestiveness: sleek, muscled backs and long strong legs of sailors in unusually close physical proximity, camped out on flight decks, and generally crawling on top of each other. This tacit editorial thrust is fine, except that the publisher and author have cynically packaged the book as WWII history, when in fact it has an altogether different agenda to promote.
For the author and the publisher to present the book as a work of naval history is disingenuous to say the least. This is a work of homosexual soft-pornography, framed with an almost campy Village People "In the Navy" subtext that insults the innocent ingenuousness of the Navy veteran of World War II.
I am no homophobe. In my business, I can't afford to be. I simply feel sorry for the gallant but politically unsophisticated WWII veterans out there who are displaying this book in their collection, unwittingly being used as foils for the author's political message and prurient interest in male beefcake.
Fecha: 2004-11-02
Wonderfully moving collection.
Too often, when modern schoolchildren consider WW2, they see the parades of elderly veterans, stooped, wrinkled, bemedaled, but essentally OLD.
What the compiler of this book has managed to do is to collect a wide range of photo material, much of it of very high quality, which shows the young men who fought WW2 as they were then. That is, as young men. Slim, upright, happy, fit. Often little more than schoolboys themselves. In that regard, this book is reminiscent of Herbert List's book "Junge Manner".
I was so impressed with my book that I've ordered a second copy to be put into the library of the secondary school at which I'm a governor. WW2 seems to be popular in history lessons. Let the children of today see the youths of yesteday as they were at their prime.
Fecha: 2004-10-08
A Moving Tribute to Masculine Beauty
Looking through the photographs in this book was like viewing a beautiful dream. The photography is excellent as it was done by the military's professional staff of photographers. The sailors are fascinating to look at. They are in peak physical condition and their faces are expressive and feeling. A part of history with enormous importance has been catalogued and preserved for the future by this wonderful author. Thank you.
Fecha: 2004-10-08
One of the Best Photography Books of the Year!
In Evan Bachner's very imformative introduction to this extraordinary book, he tells of how a photograph of a soldier from World War II caught his eye in the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1997. The photographer was someone he had never heard of before, Horace Bristol. Mr. Bachner in his dogged research discovered that the great photographer Edward J. Steichen had created the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit and then had assembled professional photographers in addition to Mr. Bristol who had made World War II photographs and ultimately printed over 15,000 images by the end of the war. Now seven years after Mr. Bachner's initial discovery, we have this stunning collection of over 150 beautifully composed, exposed and printed photographs by no less than the publisher of fine art books, Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Although there are a few photos of sailors working, for the most part these men are truly "at ease" as they sun themselves, exercise, swim, read, play games, write letters, horse around or just relax. Had Walt Whitman been alive during this era, he would have written paens to these men and their "love of comrades." There is a wonderful innocence about these photographs of men among friends. And we can all be glad that because of the order of President Truman a little later, that no photographer would ever again shoot black sailors in segregated sleeping quarters. (There are a few photographs here of black sailors relaxing together and only one shot of a black sailor and white sailor together.)
Surely this book will be on everyone's short list of best photography books of 2004. It's destined to become a classic.
Fecha: 2004-09-18
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