Salgado is one of the great figures of modern practice, placing human issues and the world's upheavals at the heart of his projects. This volume presents two aspects of his work through a selection of more than four hundred prints held in the collection of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie.

The first is a journey through the first twenty-five years of a committed maker confronted by the fury and torment of humanity; the second is his vision of the world of origins through Genesis, a homage to the beauty and fragility of a planet still untouched by human madness, which it is vital to preserve.