This Martin Parr retrospective is rich in the wit and colour that Parr's work is best known for, but also offers the first serious assessment of the career of this major contemporary photographer. Parr combines an urge to document with a bemusement about social behaviour. Author Val Williams, a distinguished writer and curator, considers his better known later work in the context of his full career and in so doing shows how Parr's photographs have highlighted political and social change over the last thirty years.

While Parr began his career in Britain, he now has a large international following. This book offers the overview that many have eagerly awaited. It features fascinating previously unpublished early work, his startling and original 1974 installation Home Sweet Home, early black-and-white photographs of the people and places of Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire where he lived and worked in the 1970s, photographs from Ireland and Salford, and of course a selection of the very best images from all his published books including The Last Resort, The Cost of Living, Signs of the Times and Think of England (published by Phaidon). With unlimited access to Parr's archives and quoting from extensive interviews, Val Williams charts Parr's life and career, revealing insights into his influences and attitudes and assessing his importance within the worlds of art and photography.