Some of the included photos are identified with larger events, such as H.S. Wong's 1937 photograph of a lone child crying at a demolished train station on "Bloody Saturday" as representative of the entire bombing of Shanghai. Other photographs are excerpts from larger historic collections, such as Roger Fenton's and Alexander Gardner's respective groundbreaking documentations of the Crimean War and American Civil War. Margin notes document the circumstantial background of many photographs, as well as instances where the images have been accused of being staged.