"In a unique collection of hundreds of photographs, first volume of "150 years of photo journalism" give a visual record of the years 1850 to 1918, the last and greatest period of European dominance of the world in culture, science and the weapons of destruction. This is the story of an age when Europe sent traders, soldiers, missionaries and administrators to every continent; when ne'er-do-wells sought gold in California and Australia; when guilty fugitives sailed or steamed to countries raw or ripe for exploitation; and when hundreds of thousands of innocent emigrants fled poverty and persecution in Europe to seek a fairer future across the Atlantic. This is the picture history of a world that plunged from sailing ship to submarine, that soared into the skies with the first heavier-than-air machines, that caused panic in the streets with horseless carriages, and amazed its inhabitants with the telephone and telegraph. From the Crimean War to the Peace of Versailles, from the building of the Eiffel Tower to the sinking of the Titanic, from the crinoline to the one piece bathing suit, "150 years of photo journalism" covers the joys and horrors, the triumphs and disasters, the everyday and the extraordinary of the first slab of history to be caught by the camera." -- Inside front cover.