Work

Culled from National Geographic's vast photographic archive as well as other important collections, this fascinating, wide-ranging volume presents a wonderfully varied group portrait of people at work - in great cities and tiny villages; in 19th-century China and 21st-century New York; in fields, factories, food carts, four-star restaurants, and just about everywhere else we earn our keep.

Here are cowboys and clowns, shepherds and shopkeepers, street musicians and artists' models all plying their assorted trades; on one page a professional quarterback fires off a pass as the crowd cheers him on, on the next a lone fisherman casts his net in the silent solitude of a Pacific lagoon, and on the next a nomadic tribesman erects a yurt on the Mongolian plain.

Work is a subject that is both worldwide and personal. It is a shared endeavour at the very core of our identity. From the glamour of a Parisian fashion show to the grit of an African diamond mine, there are countless ways to make a living.

The book illuminates scores of them - many in never-before-published photographs - offering revealing glimpses into various eras and cultures and engaging the reader with entertaining text and informative captions.

With a wonderful mix of the utterly unexpected and the instantly familiar, this vivid panorama takes an essential human activity and shows us myriad ways in which work is at once universal and delightfully, unforgettably unique.