Showing First seen : portraits of the world's peoples, 1840-1880 by Kathleen Stewart Howe

Almost as soon as photography was invented, its practitioners rushed to the four corners of the earth to document its peoples. Accompanying a major travelling exhibition, this catalogue reproduces more than 240 rare photographs from the Wilson Centre for Photography in London. On subjects ranging from Italian street musicians to opium smokers in Tonkin, these images reveal the tensions in 19th century society as it struggled with issues of personal and national identity in an age of exploration and imperial expansion.