A celebrated photographer for 40 years, Ellen Graham has worked with magazines across America, photographing some of the world's most talked-about people: actors, artists, performers, socialites, and the glitterati that we are all obsessed with. Graham's images strike a balance between the glamour of a formal Hollywood photo shoot and the intrigue of a tabloid expose for a true intimate look at such legendary figures as Frank Sinatra, Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, and Carrie Fisher. Whether shooting actors, performers, or European royalty, she redefines the resonating myths that have come to surround these figures. Talking Pictures brings together over 200 images culled from Graham's work for such magazines as People and Time, her personal archives, and her collection of family photographs, accompanied by a personal narrative that takes you behind the scenes of each celebrated image and breathes life into the glamour of Hollywood's golden age.

Throughout the twentieth century governments came to increasingly appreciate the value of soft power to help them achieve their foreign policy ambitions. Covering the crucial period between 1936 and 1953, this book examines the U.S. government's adoption of diplomatic programs that were designed to persuade, inform, and attract global public opinion in support of American national interests. Cultural diplomacy and international information were deeply controversial to an American public that been bombarded with propaganda during the First World War. This book explains how new notions of propaganda as reciprocal exchange, cultural engagement, and enlightening information paved the way for innovations in U.S. diplomatic practice. Through a comparative analysis of the State Department's Division of Cultural Relations, the government radio station Voice of America, and the multilateral cultural, educational and scientific diplomacy of Unesco, and drawing extensively on U.S. foreign policy archives, this book shows how America's liberal traditions were reconciled with the task of influencing and attracting publics abroad.

An orphan girl raised in the restrictive city of Dis, Lana longed for the trees that circled her home. Their mysterious inhabitants, the Nishi, were vilified by the nuns of the orphanage, but Lana did not care. She defied her upbringing and sought her destiny among the branches.