Streets of the world

"With a preface by Mark Blaisse, author of Before They Passed Away, this book picks out one street in 200 different cities across the 7 continents. By means of infographics and a short text, the street becomes a symbol for a culture, a country in its entirety. Seven years of travel were needed to make this book. With a focus on detailed street knowledge, this is the perfect gift for travelers and photography enthusiasts alike"--Publisher's description. 200 countries; one street each; seven years of travelling and collecting photos, stories, facts and figures about each country. This is not just another photography book. It reveals everything that a street means to society: education, wisdom, youth, experience, happiness, stories, food, and so much more. This is the raw material of life, drawn directly from the experiences of the Belgian photographer Jeroen Swolfs. Seeing the street as a unifying theme, he travelled in search of that one street in each place - sometimes by a harbour or a railway station - that comprised the country as a whole. Each stunning image conveys culture, colours, rituals, even the history of the city and country where he found them. Swolfs sees the street as a universal meeting place, a platform of crowds, a centre of news and gossip, a place of work, and a playground for children. Swolfs's streets are a matrix for community; his photographs are published at a time when the unique insularity of local communities everywhere has never been more under threat.