Consisting solely of previously unpublished photographs, The Way Back is a deep dive through Bruce Davidson’s 60-year career. The book chronologically presents photos made between 1957 and 1992, showcasing Davidson’s exceptional versatility—from his earliest assignments to later seminal bodies of work including his year-long study of teenage members of a “Brooklyn Gang” (1959), his extensive coverage of the American Civil Rights Movement in “Time of Change” (1961–65), and his breakthrough portraits of the residents of a single block in Harlem in “East 100th Street” (1966–68). Series such as “Subway” (1980) and “Central Park” (1992) furthermore confirm Davidson as a quintessential chronicler of New York City.

Regardless of his motif, what emerges through this retrospective is Davidson’s overt sensibility and empathy for his subjects, his commitment to documenting them in depth over time, and to capturing their beliefs, communities and subcultures. Unlike his peers who photographed events that constituted history, Davidson focused on the people within these histories. Now, drawing near the end of his long career, Davidson offers this book as a parting look at his artistic passage, an elegiac goodbye as well as a requiem: evidence how his vision, experienced over decades, has shaped our understanding of the world.