Several hundred pairs of
photographs reproduced facing each other across the pages of this glossy coffee table book, selected and arranged by journalist Fred Pearce to illustrate how landscapes and cityscapes from around the world have changed in the last 100 years.
The concept is simple, no doubt, but is bound to evoke a complex range of responses from readers. On the one hand, flipping through some of the pages is a bit like browsing through an album of old
family high resolution stock photos where the faces are recognizable, but the styles and settings are curiously uncomfortable and sometimes out of date. A photograph from 1925 of Ginza of Tokyo shows only a few multi-story buildings flanking a street crowded with cars. Across the top is Ginza today, the facades of glass and steel towers showing signs advertising lights and shop awnings.