Top Writers select their photographs of the Decade Photojournalism Photography

Geoff Dyer: The image of blindfolded Iraqis being led by a marine recalls paintings by Sargent and Brueghel


From the Guardian : "Blood, smoke, rubble, floodwater, guns, bodies, riot shields, flame, skyscrapers, more rubble and more floodwater and more blood – is that what the decade was about?" asks Philip Pullman in his contribution to our Review cover story this week. We invited ten writers – Pullman, Simon Schama, Mary Beard, Germaine Greer, Will Self, Blake Morrison, Hilary Mantel, Jeremy Paxman, Pankaj Mishra and Geoff Dyer – to choose an image from two covetable new collections of the most powerful photojournalism from the last 10 years (Decade, edited by Eamonn McCabe and published by Phaidon, and the Guardian's Eyewitness Decade, edited by Roger Tooth)... Read more ...

Pankaj Mishra: These Chinese women belong to the hundreds of millions in their country who may never stand up

Jeremy Paxman: The image of the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue reminds us that not everything we saw in Iraq was what it appeared

Hilary Mantel: I think that in 50 years, this picture of a monkey at Huntingdon Life Sciences will look like pornography

Philip Pullman: It is a privilege to be alive at a time when Daniel Barenboim and his orchestra are doing the impossible

Blake Morrison: The poignant image of Blair and Bush at Camp David had all the warning signs. If only we'd seen them

Will Self: These burning cows are synonymous with our Promethean hubris and our Neronic fiddling about

Germaine Greer: To look at this picture is to feel a sudden grief. Where is Rachel Whiteread'sMonument now?

Mary Beard: The Catholic church continues to outdo its rivals with its approach to ritual, as shown by these windswept cardinals

Simon Schama: Occasionally, photojournalism rises to the level of great art, as in this image of a Kenyan rinsing soot from his face