About this item
How a lone man’s epic obsession led to one of America’s greatest cultural treasures: Prizewinning writer Timothy Egan tells the riveting, cinematic story behind the most famous photographs in Native American history — and the driven, brilliant man who made them. Edward Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer, and a famous photographer, the Annie Leibovitz of his time. He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudeville stars, leading thinkers. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the continent’s original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.An Indiana Jones with a camera, Curtis spent the next three decades traveling from the Havasupai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the Acoma on a high mesa in New Mexico to the Salish in the rugged Northwest rain forest, documenting the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes.
About the Author
TIMOTHY EGAN is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and the author of nine books, including the forthcoming, A PILGRIMAGE TO ETERNITY, which will be released on Oct. 15. His most recent book, THE IMMORTAL IRISHMAN, was a New York Times Bestseller. His book on the Dust Bowl, THE WORST HARD TIME, won a National Book Award for nonfiction. His book on photographer Edward Curtis, SHORT NIGHTS OF THE SHADOW CATCHER, was awarded the Carnegie Medal for nonfiction. He writes a bi-weekly opinion column for the New York Times.
