Women Who Light the Dark. Don’t miss it! Click here.
Celebrating
Women. Color photographs by Paola Gianturco of 17 festivals in 15
countries that celebrate women’s attributes and accomplishments.
To see more, click here.
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The cacophony of color that assaults you when you visit Guatemala is no accident. It’s a profound manifestation of the irrepressible vitality and valor of an indomitable people who have endured and gained strength from their difficulties, traditions, land, spiritual beliefs, and kinships. ¡Viva Colores! profiles forty-one everyday heroes who are shaping their nation's future. Photographs by Paola Gianturco, text by David Hill.
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Tribes of the Great Rift Valley. Photojournalist
Elizabeth L. Gilbert’s traveled move than 3,000
Miles between Eritrea and Malawi to document
25 African ethnic groups. Her intimate black and
white photographs of endangered cultures feel,
Vogue comments, “urgent and essential.”
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Women Empowered, Inspiring Change in the Emerging
World. If you like Women Who Light the Dark, you will
appreciate CARE’s book that profiles women in 8 developing
countries who have turned their struggles into triumphs.
Photographer Phil Borges began to shoot these black-and
-white and sepia portraits in 2004. They show women in
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana,
Guatemala, Togo, Ecuador and India. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright (whom I worked with years ago)
wrote the Foreword and Isabel Allende contributed a
cover blurb. The book includes a wonderful three-paragraph
essay about the environment by Wangari Maathai, Kenya’s
2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
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IMPACT: From the Front Lines of Global
Health. Karen Kasmauski traveled through
five continents over 15 years covering the
global reach of diseases and the compassionate
attempts of those who work to improve health.
Her photographs are brilliant. Her coverage of
women’s issues has appeared regularly in
National Geographic. I was honored when she
telephoned me one day to ask a question. Science
writer Peter Jaret wrote the text for IMPACT,
and Nobel Peace Prize winner, President Jimmy Carter,
wrote the Foreword.
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The Other Side of War: Women’s Stories of
Hope and Survival, includes images taken in 6
countries by award-winning photographers
Susan Meiselas, Lekha Singh, and Sylvia Plachy.
This book includes letters and first-person narratives
by women who survived war, all of whom live
in the regions where Women For Women International,
the organization founded by the book’s author, Zainab
Salbi, works. Ms. Salbi was first a guest on the Oprah
Winfrey Show the same day I was; I applaud her for
this important documentary book.
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Halo
of the Sun. Noel Bennett, a Persian-American woman weaver,
lived on a Navajo Indian reservation for eight years. Over time,
she gained the trust of the Navajo women who taught her to weave
as they did, and shared their legends.
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In National Geographic’s
Eighth Atlas of the World is not only an invaluable
reference, it’s fascinating reading. It maps
the physical and political world as well as
human activities as diverse as population
migration, terrorism, culture and war. There
are maps of the world’s interior and satellite photographs
(night shots show where people have electricity or only fire).
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Penguin
Atlas of Women in the World is brimming with information-rich
maps created by Myriad Editions, UK to show patterns and problems
that depict women’s lives around the globe: their work, health,
education and personal freedom.
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Ndebele. For generations, Ndebele women have made rich ceremonial beadwork
and large murals on the exterior walls of their mud dwellings, but
Margaret Courtney-Clarke was the first to photograph this remarkable
artistry.
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Headwraps. Georgia
Scott left her job as an art director for the New York Times, stored
everything she owned, and spent a year photographing headwraps in
32 countries.
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Wise
Women. Joyce Tenneson traveled throughout America to
photograph and interview women whose ages ranged from65 to 100.
Rather than the frail stereotypeof aging that North American
society has fostered in the past, she found accomplished women who
were vital, energetic, beautiful inside and out.
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Tribe
of Women. Connie Bickman, a photojournalist who lives
in Minnesota, began her spiritual and physical travels in 1989.
Over ten years, she visited women in 18 countries. “Though
we may travel far and in many directions…every being is a
mirror to our own divine self,” she writes.
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In
Her Hands, Craftswomen Changing the World, Paola
Gianturco’s first book, was created with Toby Tuttle. They
traveled to 28 villages on 4 continents to document the lives
of heroic women artisans living on less than $1 a day, who are
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WOMEN, A Celebration of Strength. Women interested in
the history of women’s rights in the United States will fall
in love with this fact-filled, adult pop-up ook—yes, pop-up book!—
that includes mini-copies of the documents that shape women’s
rights and lives. It’s full of timelines, news stories, bios and
photographs. I am still wowed.
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Persepolis,
The Story of a Childhood is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny,
heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic
Revolution, a story she tells in black-and-white comic strips.
As the great granddaughter of one Iran's last emperors, her story
is a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression
— and a introduction to a loveable little girl.
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Imagining Ourselves, Global Voices from A New Generation of Women. Paula Goldman emailed women in their 20’s and 30’s to respond to the question: “What defines your generation of women?” Responses from more than 100 women from 57 countries are included in this book: prose, poems, photographs, paintings. I was excited when the International Museum of Women followed the
first exhibit they ever curated (based on my book celebrating Women) with Paula’s remarkable on-line exhibit. To see it, click here.
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Mother, Daughter, Sister, Bride: Rituals of
Womanhood. Co-authors Joanne Eicher
(anthropologist) and Lisa Ling (host of the
National Geographic channel’s Explorer)
provide a fascinating look at the historical,
cultural, emotional, and personal impact
of women's rituals and ritual practices.
Gorgeous photographs from the National
Geographic archives portray these women
and their customs across time and around
the world.
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Transforming Lives $40 at a Time. My
friend Dana Whitaker’s first book is packed
with information about micro-credit plus her
color photographs and profiles of women
micro-entrepreneurs in 13 countries on five
continents who are using their loans to provide
their families and communities with a better life.
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Love.
The introduction was written by Kim Phuk, whom you will remember
seeing in the 1972 news photograph: a little Vietnamese girl running
naked down the road, her skin on
fire with napalm. The photographer who took
that picture rushed her to the hospital. Today, she lives in Canada
and is a good will ambassador for UNESCO. Love is brimming with
images taken all over the world, selected from the project titled
MILK (Moments of Intimacy, Laughter and Kinship) that has produced
photography exhibits, cards, and books in six languages.
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Dogon
People of the Cliffs. Despite the pressures of the expansion
of Islam and
tourism, the cliff-dwelling Dogon people of Mali maintain their
ancient animist culture.
Agnes Pataux’s arresting black and white images document the
Dogon people and the stark environment in which they live.
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Women of the World. Claudia Demonte collected 174 pieces of art from as many countries,
each an 8” x 8” answer to the question, “Who is
woman, what is she?”
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African Ceremonies.
Angela Fisher and Carol Beckwith have photographed Africa for
over three decades. This book took ten years. It covers sacred
ceremonies all over the continent, a visual journeys through the
meaning and power of traditional rituals. The book includes 43
ceremonies in 26 countries, now beautifully documented before
they disappear; it’s a two volume tour de force.
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Images
of the Spirit. In pictures taken of cultures in
her native Mexico, Graciela Iturbide perceives the surreal and the
marvelous: a mix of history, lyricism and portraiture, identity,
diversity and selfhood.
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Women
in the Material World. Faith D'Alusio and a team of
female photojournalists visited 20 countries to create photo essays
about women’s hopes, dreams sorrows, and joys.
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Women
Photographers at National Geographic The magazine has
employed many women as freelance photographers since 1953 when the
first woman joined the photographic staff. This book features images
by women who shoot for National Geographic all over the world.
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Eye
To Eye-Women. Features the words and worlds of women from
Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, as seen in photographs
and fiction by each region’s top women writers.
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