Sidney D. Gamble's China, 1917-1932: Photographs of the Land and Its People

Gamble, late grandson of the founder of Procter & Gamble, spent three long sojourns in China during the period 1917-1932. Trained in economics at Princeton and the University of California, he undertook pioneering surveys of life both in Beijing and in rural North China. One of his methods, and the purpose of this book, was photography, and this lavish volume contains more than 90 beautifully printed, highly evocative duotones of a China that is no more. Each photo is complemented by calligraphy and a Chinese poem in English translation. Although the images spilling from these pages will please anyone interested in China, the pictures cry out for fuller explanation than is provided by the one-line captions, and such background material would have been a better accompaniment than the poems, whose connection to the images is sometimes strained. It is unfortunate that the volume's price makes it inaccessible to many. (Mar . )