Violentology: A Manual of the Colombian Conflict

In this striking collection, award-winning photojournalist Ferry follows his 1999 meditation on tin miners in Bolivia (I Am Rich Potosí: The Mountain That Eats Men) with this equally unblinking portrait of human struggle. Shot over more than a decade, the images form a raw, arresting look at Colombia’s longstanding internal conflict, launched by the cocaine trade but now infinitely more complex. Unvarnished and often deeply disturbing, the work alternates between black-and-white and color, and between Ferry’s own and archival images. A sense of dislocation, uncertainty, panic, and fear pulse from every page. The book’s essays describe Colombia’s convoluted, pervasive strife, and Ferry’s stylistic jaggedness—images range from blurry and kinetic to ominous and still—captures the anxiety of daily life. In a particularly arresting image, a sense of doom hangs cloudlike over three small, vulnerable white-clad figures trekking across a hillside deforested by the cocaine trade. The next pages show the aftermath of the murder of a member of this very tribe. The breadth of this excellent collection accentuates an unwieldy and horrific topic, but one that is profoundly important. (Sept.)