The Spirit of Family
 Al & Tipper Gore
 (Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
 2002 Henry Holt & Co.
 ISBN: 0805068945

A collection of world class photographs defining & binding us into families.

Al & Tipper Gore observe that over the last two generations the family has undergone a profound transformation. Torn between new demands at work, & new complexities at home, Americans are performing a balancing act with changing roles, new gender & age configurations, single parenting & interfaith & interracial marriages. All require we look at our notions of what family is & what it means.

Selected from more than 15,000 images of both renowned photographers such as Tina Barney, Mitch Epstein, Lee Friedlander, Sally Mann, Mary Ellen Mark, & Nicholas Nixon, as well of National Geographic photojournalists William Albert Allard, Jodi Cobb & David Alan Harvey; so too are the works of relatively unknown artists Debbie Fleming Caffery, Maude Schuyler Clay & Jennette Williams who specialize in photographing their own children, the Gores present a wide-ranging & inspiring glimpse into the life of our nation of families.

Whether a single Mom in a city slum or a Mennonite family of many generations about their daily work, whether religiously orthodox tribes in formal poses, or generations of women & men, or casual moments in a sprawling home, The Spirit of Family exudes from each page, a plenitude of people from all walks of life, at home, reading to their children, or posing stiffly & proud, or ignoring the photographer or grinning self-consciously.

First Couples--the ying & the yang of it, not always what you expect, & then on to making babies, becoming family, generations, death & rebirth.

The kind of book you mull over, re-open as you would your own family albums, & wonder at the stories each picture tells.

Al Gore is a former Vice President of the United States & the author of Earth in the Balance, Access America: Reengineering Through Information Technology, & with Tipper Gore Joined at the Heart : The Transformation of the American Family

Tipper Gore served as Advisor to the President on Mental Health Policy & as Special Advisor to the Interagency on the Homeless. Formerly a photojournalist for The Tennessean, she published a collection of her photographs Picture This: A Visual Diary. She contributed to The Way Home: Ending Homelessness in America. Her first book was Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society.
(08/10/03)

Rebecca