Many of the images that have come to sum up the most turbulent century in human history belong to the realist tradition of photography. At once objective and polemical, disengaged and yet concerned, the documentary photograph has not merely recorded, but also shaped the way we see our world. Over 200 photographs by the century's most important realist photographers are reproduced in this book, together with essays and biographies of the photographers featured. Published to coincide with the first ever major photography exhibition staged at Tate Modern, Summer 2003