For All the Marbles

As 1972 came to a close fifty years ago this month, so too did an era. “This issue of Life is the last of 1,864 issues,” Hedley Donovan, the long-time editor-in-chief of Time Incorporated, wrote in the December 29 edition of the iconic weekly magazine. “In part because of Life, we live in an age of pictures.”

While the ninety-six pages of volume 73, number 25, were stuffed with colourful ads for automobiles and cigarettes, editorial photography played the undisputed starring role. Flip through it today, and you’ll find Richard Nixon trying to use chopsticks at a formal dinner in Hangzhou, China, and attending a champagne reception in Moscow. A young Catholic woman hurtling a rock at a British armoured vehicle in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, perhaps on Bloody Sunday. Nine-year-old Kim Phúc running toward Nick Ut’s Leica M2 camera, in an indelible frame that would later...