"A stunning sequel to the James AgeeWalker Evans'classic, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. It is at times astonishing, at all times deeply moving."-Studs Terkel

"A book that reaches into this country's heart of darkness. . . . A tragically human story more telling than a thousand polls. The photographs by Mr. Williamson are eloquent."-Herbert Mitgang, New York Times

"Mr. Williamson's photos are spellbinding and should become instant classics."-John Elvin, Washington Times

In this paperback reissue, an author/photographer team returns to the land and families captured in James Agee and Walker Evans's inimitable masterwork Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, extending the projectof conscience and chronicling the traumatic decline of King Cotton. In 1936, during a brief window of national attention to the topic, Fortunemagazine commissioned from Agee and Evans a story on poverty among tenant farmers in Alabama. Agee was famously ambivalent in his role, calling himself a spy and ultimately delivering a book-length manuscript unpublishable in magazine form. With this continuation of Agee and Evans's work, Maharidge and Williamson not only uncover some surprising historical secrets relating to the families and to Agee himself, but also effectively lay to rest Agee's fear that his work, from lack of reverence or resilience, would be but another offense to the humanity of its subjects.

Williamson's 90-part photo essay includes updates alongside Evans'classic originals.

Dale Maharidge(Homeland, Journey to Nowhere) has been a visiting professor of journalism at Columbia University and Stanford, and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1998.

Michael Williamsonis a photographer for the Washington Postwho won a second Pulitzer for his coverage of the war in Kosovo.

In 1936, writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans lived with three tenant farming families from Hobe's Hill, Alabama, to chronicle the decline of the cotton economy in the rural South and its effects on the people who lived there. Their classic study, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, was continued in the 1980s by writer Maharidge and photographer Williamson, who spent three years with the descendents of the families of the original study. Their book, which won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1990, delves deeply into the stories of the cotton farmers and the socio-economic history of their crop. This paperback edition contains an 80-page section of high- quality photos.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

In this reissue, an author/photographer team returns to the land of families captured in the inimitable masterwork "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," extending the project of conscience and chronicling the traumatic decline of King Cotton.

Dale Maharidge has taught at Columbia and Stanford University and was a 1988 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Michael Williamson, a staff photographer at the Washington Post, won a second Pultitzer Prize in 2000 for his Kosovo war photography.