This collection of pictures by an acknowledged master of photography, now updated to include 11 new images, forms a document of the spiritual and physical state of exile. The sense of private mystery that fills these photographs - mostly taken during Koudelka's many years of wandering through Europe and the United States since leaving his native Czechoslovakia - speaks of passion and reserve, of his "rage to see". The images here interrogate and penetrate, and reflect the nature of alienation. The accompanying essay by Robert Delpire invokes the soul of man in search of a spiritual homeland. Josef Koudelka's photographs of the Warsaw Pact armies' intervention in Prague won him the Robert Capa Gold Medal in 1969. In 1970 he left Czechoslovakia for asylum in England and became a member of Magnum Photos.

The arrival of the moving image in contemporary art has provoked a great deal of discussion amongst critics, artists and curators, and presents a serious challenge to our understanding of the traditional media and institutions of film, painting and sculpture. "The Reader" aims to address these issues and generate further art historical study. "Art and the Moving Image" presents an array of critical, theoretical, and historical responses that pertain to this paradigm shift: its cause, its motivation, and its aesthetic, social, and political significance. This stimulating collection brings together the most significant writings from leading art historians, curators, artists, theorists, and philosophers, and it includes seminal historical articles, as well as recent criticism, including newly translated and commissioned essays.

本书是一本关于影像的书，是作者近三年来收集、整理、考证旧影像的一些感悟。内中涉及到一些关于“影像史学”和“影像叙事学”的学术命题，也非纯学术的论述，只是想通过这种随笔的形式让书变得有趣而富有启发性。其中，相当篇幅的历史描述都是阅读影像的产物。而作者更看重的是本书所涉及的以下几个层面：影像的历史，影像的历史运用，历史学家利用影像的方式，在影像中解读历史，以影像做历史纪录，记忆在影像历史中的位置等命题。
很显然，这里的影像很大程度上是指非剧情影像，也就是通常所指的纪录片。但事实上，作者并不想陷入纪录片这个特指的概念，麻烦的是纪录片是有艺术属性的，而作者所论的影像概念是中性的、宽泛的，也包括照片影像，包括与纪录片纠缠不清的专题片影像。在作者看来，真实的影像是沉默的、纪实的、无性别的、无结构的，只是关于历史的一种材料，一段见证。即便谈到纪录片的历史，也是关于理念的变迁而非艺术的创造。纪录片发展史只是影像史的一种推动，所以作者更看重影像的历史运用和在影像中解读历史，而不想写一部纪录片史论。
并不是所有的历史学家都有阅读影像的便利，这一方面因为中国的影像档案尚未完善，另一方面，