The Alps 1900. A Portrait in Color

Worth the investment!

Il destinatario (amante delle montagne) ed ai suoi amici è piaciuto,

Ich habe das Buch meinem Mann geschenkt und es gefällt ihm sehr.

This book collection is superb and the Alps is possibly the crowning glory. It’s really fantastic to see the photos and to understand that this is proof of what the world was like before the world wars destroyed a majority of the buildings. This book specifically will be a reminder of what was as the environment changes and these beautiful snow capped peaks slowly melt away.

This book is very perplexing to me, because it is really a magnificent compilation of gorgeous and historic 20th century Alps-region photographs. This is a real time capsule of the mountains, the disappearing glaciers, Alpine customs, dress, architecture, and folklore of that era and area.The reason I deduct one star, in fact i was tempted to deduct two, is that there is NO MAP of the alps provided for the reader to make reference to. The book is actually divided into five different sectors of the Alps. I just don’t know how you can do a book like this, and actually design the book to be divided into five different regions, and not provide a fold-out map that delineates where the five regions are. I had expected a lavish fold-out map, or perhaps even a free-standing Alps map tucked into a pocket in the back. Really, someone needs to be fired. This is an expensive book and for there to be a major glaring blemish like this is unforgivable. There is a photograph of an antique map that’s in French about 50 pages in, but it is certainly insufficient as a reference to figuring out where you are in the book geographically. No reference on this antique map is made to the five regions which comprise the entire organization of this book. It’s just really strange to me that Taschen would allow such a major oversight.I have close to 40 of the different Taschen XXL titles, and I really love having almost all of them. But I do have a consistent complaint: Instead of the ugly cardboard box (with plastic handle) in which these books come, they really need to do a slipcase that the book can slide into, so it can be protected and properly displayed. I don’t want to display my books in the cardboard boxes, and so I have all the empty boxes up in the attic as a major fire hazard and consuming lot of storage space. I would gladly spend 20 or $30 more for a nice slipcase for these books.The next perennial complaint is that the photographic captions are just way too small. I do wear glasses, but you need a magnifying glass to read the captions for most of these photographs. And if you have dim light, good luck making out a single word. I had to do my initial review of this book with an illuminated magnifying glass in order to read any of the captions. Again, at this price point, you do not expect major design blemishes like this.Still, for anyone interested in the Alps, this book is probably a must-have. But it also represents a major lost opportunity by Taschen to make something really special and definitive.