At the turn of the twentieth century, the stereograph was king. Its binocular images revealed the world in vivid, three-dimensional detail. Drawing on an enormous, rarely seen collection of stereographic views, Michael Lesy presents images displaying a riot of peoples and cultures, stark class divisions and unsettling glimpses of daily life a century ago.

Lesy’s evocative essays reassert the primacy of the stereograph in American visual history. In underscoring the unnerving parallels between that period and our own, Looking Backward reveals a history that shadows us today.