Nicholas Mirzoeff, a media, culture and communication professor at New York University, attempts to justify the study of visual culture by describing coherently, how strange our visual world has become. The book asks the reader to visualize contemporary society through the lens of accelerated technological change. Drawing on art history, sociology, semiotics, and everyday experience, he teaches us how to read everything closely from astronaut selfies to Impressionist self-portraits, from Hitchcock films to videos taken by drones. Mirzoeff takes us on a journey through visual revolutions in the arts and sciences, from new mapping techniques in 17th Century to new painting styles in the 18th Century and the creation of film, photography, and x-rays in 19th Century. He says: 'Once we have learned how to see the world, we have taken only one of the required steps. the point is to change it.'