The Postcard Century tells the story of the last hundred years in its own words and images. Two thousand picture postcards and their messages provide a living account of the daily existence of people and a vivid glimpse of what mattered to them, pleased them, shocked or amused them via the cards they chose to send. Tom Phillips provides a commentary on the visual material, giving a perceptive and thoughtful context for the messages. This book gives a unique glimpse into the hearts and minds of the people who lived through the most turbulent century in our history. Phillips' introduces this book with a history and account of postcards and postcard collecting. Phillips indicates in the introduction that the book is arranged such that each annual section features a view of Picadilly Circus and another of the New York skyline, all posted in the that year. This choice relates to one of his artistic parallel streams of creativity, images changed by the passage of time. Further, this project dealing with postcards extends his own interests in appropriating postcard images since the sixties, e.g., the print series of "Requium After Brahms" (held by the Sackner Archive) and "Benches," painting held by Tate and documentation and poster held by Sackner Archive. Page 68 depicts a postcard sent in 1908 of a collage of newspaper advertisements that elicit concrete poetry. Phillips comments, "Many avant garde artists would later think that they were doing this sort of work for the first time. This, with its fine title (given in the message) Bully Beef Times, is a standard of ambition, invention, and archaic word-play that make it worthy of a place in the well known Sackner Archive of Miami Beach, the world's leading collection of concrete and visual poetry." Page 88 shows a postcard sent in 1913 of a surealistic image associated with cigarette smoking, e.g., smoke evolving into an image of a beautiful woman. Page 92 shows a postcard sent in 1914 dealing with a map of the Western hemisphere and the opening Panama canal that is an example of visual poetry. Page 424 depicts a postcard sent in 1997 that is an example of calligraphic concrete poetry in a mandala-like shape. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.