The Camera at War

Name: The Camera at War
Brand: Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand
SKU: 9781781579657
Price: 100.0 NZD
Availability: InStock

170 years of weaponizing photography

By Hilary Roberts

0.0 (0 reviews)

Brief Description

It is said that the first casualty of war is truth. But in the arena of war photography, the truth is never simple. Drawing on an incredible range of imagery from the Imperial War Museum's vast collection and other major archives around the globe, expert curator... Read More

Format: Hardback

$100⁰⁰

AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

The Camera at War

$100⁰⁰

Drawing on an incredible archive of historic and contemporary imagery, former Imperial War Museum photo curator Hilary Roberts charts over 170 years of photographic manipulation in the causes of national morale, subterfuge and control of the winning narrative.

Description

It is said that the first casualty of war is truth. But in the arena of war photography, the truth is never simple.

Drawing on an incredible range of imagery from the Imperial War Museum's vast collection and other major archives around the globe, expert curator Hilary Roberts presents a new perspective on the role of image manipulation in this field over the past 170 years, exploring the consequences for our understanding of historic and contemporary conflicts.

From the staged scenes and hand-coloured Daguerreotypes of the Crimean War at the very beginning of conflict photography to the AI-generated protest and propaganda imagery of today, Roberts explores the myriad ways in which layers of meaning can be added, erased or changed completely. As The Camera at War so powerfully reveals, sometimes this has been done in order to present a closer approximation of the truth, and sometimes for the causes of national morale, subterfuge and control of the winning narrative.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781781579657

Publisher: Octopus Publishing Group

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 23 October 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Ilex

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 22.0mm

Width: 234.0mm

Height: 292.0mm

Weight: 1460g

Pages: 256

Collections

Arts & Culture Hilary Roberts Non-Fiction

About the Author

Hilary Roberts is an independent curator of photography. She joined the Imperial War Museum's (IWM) Photograph Archive as a junior curator in 1980. As the Archive's Head Curator (1996-2013), she oversaw the development of IWM's photographic collections and the Archive's transition to digital photography, before moving to a research role.

A specialist in the history and practice of conflict photography, Hilary has numerous broadcasts, publications and exhibitions to her name, including IWM's highly praised trilogy of exhibitions Don McCullin: Shaped by War (2010-2012), Cecil Beaton: Theatre of War (2012) and Lee Miller: A Woman's War (2015-2016). Hilary was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Award for Curatorship in 2017.