0 5 min 4 weeks

Albert Camus: Intellectual Titan

In 1968 LIFE magazine summed up the appeal of French philosopher and author Albert Camus with a single sentence: “Camus looked directly into the darkness as saw sun—the human spirit.” The line came from a review of Camus’ book “Lyrical and Critical Essays.” And the […]

People

Bears: Strong, Wise, and Increasingly Among Us

0 6 min 8 mths

The following is adapted from LIFE’s new special issue on bears, available at newsstands and online: Globally, bear populations are plummeting, with several species designated as endangered or vulnerable to extinction. But in many parts of North America, people are seeing more bears than ever. […]

Animals
0 6 min 8 mths

LIFE With Ingrid Bergman

More than most stars of her rare magnitude, Ingrid Bergman was an actress who went her own way. A Hollywood luminary for decades, from the Thirties well into the Seventies, the Swedish-born beauty acted in films that not only entertained millions but that also satisfied […]

People
0 5 min 9 mths

Behind the Picture: Hansel Mieth’s Wet, Unhappy Monkey

It is, without question, one of the most famous, most frequently reproduced animal photographs ever made. But photographer Hansel Mieth‘s own attitude toward her 1938 portrait of a sodden rhesus monkey hunched in the water off of Puerto Rico was, to put it bluntly, conflicted. […]

Animals
0 9 min 11 mths

Apes: Their Remarkable World

The following is from LIFE’s new special issue Apes: Their Remarkable World, available at newsstands and online: Two rangers quietly sat on a platform 25 feet up in a tree with a large pile of bananas and red buckets filled with milk. As I watched, […]

Animals
0 5 min 2 yrs

The Oscar-Winning Movie Where the Stars Were All Birds

If it’s not the strangest movie ever to come out of Hollywood, it’s close enough. And of all the strange movies to come out of Hollywood, it is likely the sweetest. The stars of the 1948 film Bill and Coo were birds. That’s not to […]

Nature
0 4 min 2 yrs

Stones on the Run: A Death Valley Spectacle

In its March 10, 1952 issue LIFE magazine served its readers photos of the “sailing rocks” of the Racetrack Playa, a dry lake bed near Death Valley, California. The stones don’t do anything really wild like zip around in front of people, but they have […]

Nature
0 4 min 2 yrs

The Original Vacation Spot

Lake George, N.Y. makes an unusual claim to fame: it touts itself as the America’s original vacation spot. The basis of that claim? In 1869 a Boston preacher named William H.H. Murray published his popular book Adventures in the Wilderness, or Camp-Life in the Adirondacks, […]

Nature
0 8 min 2 yrs

Birds: The World’s Most Remarkable Creatures

The following is from LIFE’s beautifully illustrated new special edition, Birds: The World’s Most Remarkable Creatures, available at newsstands and online: The first bird I fell in love with—my “spark bird”—was soaring in the northeastern Florida sky one May many years ago, its pointed wings […]

Nature
0 9 min 5 yrs

Cats: Companions in Life

The following story comes from the introduction to LIFE’s special issue, Cats: Companions in Life. One morning, some years ago when I was living in New York City, I gathered Kaya into an old blue shawl and carried him eight blocks to the animal clinic […]

Nature
0 4 min 5 yrs

When Maine Got Its Caribou Back

They say you can’t beat mother nature, but every now and then people give it a shot. Every now and then it works—rivers are rerouted, new crops are introduced. So in 1963, Maine figured it would try to get its caribou back. Caribou were once […]

Nature