Don McCullin s view of England is rooted in two worldshis wartime
childhood, and his youthin 1950sFinsbury Park. His first published
photograph was a picture of a gang from his neighborhood, which appeared
in a newspaper after a local murder. McCullin always balanced his anger
at the unacceptable face of the nation with tenderness or compassion,
and in this collection, heenvisions his home country with itsperpetual
social gulf between the affluent and the desperate in mind. He continues
in the same black and white tradition as he did between foreign
assignments for the Sunday Times in the1960s and 1970s, when his view
of a deprived Britain seemed as dark as the conflict zones from which he
had just escaped. This book marks his return to the cities and landscape
he knew as a young photographer, adding wry humor to his famed
lyricism.At a time when we might believe the world has changed beyond
our imagination, McCullin shows us a view of Englandwhere the line
between the wealthy and theimpoverished is as defined as ever, the
nation as a whole as absurd as it is tragic."