Vladimir Levashov is an art and photography critic and curator, author of numerous essays on contemporary art and photography and of the books Photocentury (2002, 2016) and Lectures on the History of Photography (2007, 2012); this was the first title published under the joint programme of the Sreda creative laboratory and Treemedia. This third, revised edition corrects errors from earlier printings, adds new illustrations and resets the layout. In the author's own words, he wanted the lectures to carry a minimum of interpretation and a maximum of direct information, closer to a hybrid of reference book, basic textbook and collection of micro-histories about the people who made photography what it looks like today - a story that only reaches as far as 1980, and concerns itself above all with Western photography, Russian photography appearing only incidentally.