Buying Options

Digital List Price:	445.20
M.R.P.:	605.92
Kindle Price:	250.16 Save 355.76 (59%)
	inclusive of all taxes includes free wireless delivery via *Amazon Whispernet*
Sold by:	Amazon Asia-Pacific Holdings Private Limited

Enter a promotion code or Gift Card

Share <Embed>

Regarding the Pain of Others by [Susan Sontag]

Audible Sample

Playing...

Paused

Follow the Author

Susan Sontag

Regarding the Pain of Others Kindle Edition

by Susan Sontag (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

255 ratings

See all formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Kindle Edition

"Please retry"

₹ 250.16

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

₹ 0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

—

₹ 1,268.00

Paperback

"Please retry"

₹ 447.00

₹ 400.00

Regarding the Pain of Others is Susan Sontag's searing analysis of our numbed response to images of horror.

From Goya's Disasters of War to news footage and photographs of the conflicts in Vietnam, Rwanda and Bosnia, pictures have been charged with inspiring dissent, fostering violence or instilling apathy in us, the viewer. Regarding the Pain of Others will alter our thinking not only about the uses and meanings of images, but about the nature of war, the limits of sympathy, and the obligations of conscience.

'Powerful, fascinating. Sontag is our outstanding contemporary writer in the moralist tradition'Sunday Times

'A coruscating sermon on how we picture suffering'The New York Times

'A far-reaching set of ruminations on human suffering, the nature of goodness, the lures, deceptions and truth of images . . . in short, a summary of what it means to be alive and alert in the twentieth century'Independent

'Sontag is on top form: firing devastating questions'Los Angeles Times

'Simple, elegant, fiercely persuasive'Metro

One of America's best-known and most admired writers, Susan Sontag was also a leading commentator on contemporary culture until her death in December 2004. Her books include four novels and numerous works of non-fiction, among them Regarding the Pain of Others, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, At the Same Time, Against Interpretation and Other Essays and Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963, all of which are published by Penguin. A further eight books, including the collections of essays Under the Sign of Saturn and Where the Stress Falls, and the novels The Volcano Lover and The Benefactor, are available from Penguin Modern Classics.

Print length

124 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin
Publication date

5 December 2013
File size

278 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Customers who read this book also read

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Susan Sontag
132
Kindle Edition
₹ 300.31
John Berger
1,175
Kindle Edition
₹ 228.18
Tomas Tranströmer
8
Kindle Edition
₹ 355.95
Joan Didion
833
Kindle Edition
₹ 251.93
Mary Oliver
777
Kindle Edition
₹ 358.15
Yehuda Amichai
48
Kindle Edition
₹ 766.25

Product description

From Booklist

Sontag, one of our most perceptive and valiant thinkers, offered a seminal critique of camera-mediated images in On Photography. Now, 25 years later, photographs and video of the bloody consequences of terrorism and war routinely fill the media, and Sontag offers a fresh, meticulous, and deeply affecting dissection of the role images of suffering play in our lives. Do photographs and television footage of the injured and dead serve as "shock therapy" or merely elicit a momentary shudder before they're forgotten? Do images of systematic violence engender compassion and antiwar sentiments or arouse hunger for revenge? Writing with electrifying clarity and conciseness, Sontag traces the evolution of the "iconography of suffering" from paintings by Goya, to photographs of concentration camps, to the first live and in-color war coverage to rage across television screens, that of the Vietnam War, to images of the destruction of the World Trade Center taken by amateurs and professionals alike. Sontag parses the difference in our response to images of terrorism at home versus abroad, and forthrightly addresses our pornographic fascination with images of the wounded and dead. Ultimately, Sontag, scrupulous in her reasoning and exhilarating in her arguments, arrives at a paradox: although we're inundated more than ever before by stark visual evidence of the "pain of others," we've yet to increase our capacity to do something about it. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Review

“Wise and somber. . .Sontag's closing words acknowledge that there are realities which no picture can convey.” ―Los Angeles Times Book Review

“The history of sensibility in a culture shaped by the mechanical reproduction of imagery....has always been one of the guiding preoccupations of her best work, from Against Interpretation to The Volcano Lover....Regarding the Pain of Others invites, and rewards, more than one reading.” ―Newsday

“For 30 years, Susan Sontag has been challenging an entire generation to think about the things that frighten us most: war, disease, death. Her books illuminate without simplifying, complicate without obfuscating, and insist above all that to ignore what threatens us is both irresponsible and dangerous.” ―O, The Oprah Magazine

“A timely meditation on politics and ethics. . .extraordinary . . .Sontag's insight and erudition are profound.” ―The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Regarding the Pain of Others bristles with a sense of commitment--to seeing the world as it is, to worrying about the ways it is represented, even to making some gesture in the direction of changing it. . .the performance is thrilling to witness.” ―The New York Times Magazine

“A fiercely challenging book. . .immensely thought-provoking.” ―The Christian Science Monitor

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

ASIN : B00EAA6R1W
Publisher : Penguin; New Ed edition (5 December 2013)
Language : English
File size : 278 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 124 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #117,930 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #196 in Anthropology (Kindle Store)
- #982 in Anthropology (Books)
- #1,599 in Society & Culture (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
255 ratings

More items to explore

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Barack Obama
56,069
Hardcover
in Political Ideologies
₹ 1,385.00
John Zubrzycki
56
Hardcover
₹ 408.00
John M. Barry
6,055
Paperback
₹ 561.00
Daniel Yergin
457
Paperback
₹ 677.00
Douglas Stuart
6,856
Paperback
in Gay & Lesbian Studies
₹ 362.00
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
5,886
Paperback
₹ 424.00

Customer reviews

5 star		78%
4 star		12%
3 star		7%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

How are ratings calculated?

Review this product

Write a product review

Top reviews from India

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Bhagirathy J. Panth

Reviewed in India on 12 January 2019

Verified Purchase

Beautiful purse book. Love this series by picador.

Helpful

mansi mudgal

To better understand the book and her views

Reviewed in India on 18 March 2018

This is the second volume by Sontag on photography, and it is in many ways a continuation of the investigations of the first book. To better understand the book and her views, I'd suggest that the reader needs to read 'On Photography' first.
Sontag starts her essay by talking about Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas, and Woolf's rejection of the assumption that all feel the same way about war.
The book talks about the history of war photography, which is intimately bound with the history of public tolerance of violent photos, During the course of reading, I had to look up several examples cited by the author, the horrors of Vietnam War, World War, the 1857 Sepoy rebellion in India etc. which turned out to be difficult but necessary and eye opening.
While Sontag does not provide any revolutionary ideas, the essay is a succinct and thorough examination of the issues surrounding photography.
A photograph cannot immediately transmit understanding. A photograph cannot help us understand what it is to fight and kill in war or to have to dig up bombs or lose loved ones. A photograph, though a means of objectifying and transmitting memories, lacks context for a more complete individual understanding of events. It is equally about what does not make it to the frame than what does! What are we not seeing? Is the left out version not equally important? Or even more important?
Even though Sontag does not offer us a grand thesis to keep in mind or a solution to the issues that plague photo journalism, she gives us thought-provoking observations. She notes, for example, that displaying photos of dead bodies is less taboo the more foreign and exotic those bodies are, how staged photos in today's time are used to generate distrust and enmity between communities and countries

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Tariki

Well worth reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 October 2019

Verified Purchase

For anyone shocked, even ashamed, by their very own prurience in observing the suffering and pain of others, this is worth reading. We are bombarded with images of war, of the agony of other human beings. It seems whatever reaction we have, or even how perversely attractive such observation is, we can perhaps never actually fully know the reality of any "other". I believe - is it faith? - that in knowing ourselves in our full depths we CAN come to know. "The Tao can be shared but never divided", and "differentiation does not mean separation". In knowing, we act, rather than merely feel.

One person found this helpful

anon

The easily accessible writing style is the perfect cushion for the ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 May 2017

Verified Purchase

The easily accessible writing style is the perfect cushion for the tough introspection this book forces on the reader. Thoroughly recommend.

5 people found this helpful

Josh H

A good read but flawed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 November 2020

Verified Purchase

An interesting analysis by sontag, but lacking in good argument and reason to back up her ideas. Well written and an interesting read for those concerned with the ethics of photography.

Pat Garrett

wonderful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 May 2017

Verified Purchase

a worthy addition to the Sontag collection of works.....wonderful insight

2 people found this helpful

moeva rinaldo

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 August 2018

Verified Purchase

A lovely book thanks.

See all reviews

AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services	Audible Download Audio Books	DPReview Digital Photography	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities

Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	Prime Now 2-Hour Delivery on Everyday Items	Amazon Prime Music 70 million songs, ad-free

Buying Options

Buy for others

Buying and sending Kindle eBooks to others

Follow the Author

Similar authors to follow

Regarding the Pain of Others Kindle Edition

Customers who read this book also read

Product description

From Booklist

Review

About the Author

Product details

More items to explore

Customer reviews

Review this product

Top reviews from India

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries