RRB Photobooks is delighted to announce New York and the American Flag by David Hurn. The photographs in this new book span more than 50 years and depict the ubiquitous symbol of the American flag as encountered on the streets of New York. The previously unpublished photographs by David Hurn were taken across three visits to the US in 1962, 2007 and 2017 and show the potent symbol of American identity both revered and reduced to the mundane.  Hurn first visited New York in 1962, on the advice of Bruce Davidson, and spent his days photographing the streets while waiting for appointments, unwittingly building a portfolio of the city. Decades later, while browsing his contact sheets, he noticed how many of those images featured the American flag and realised that, if he returned and photographed more, he could trace the changing feel of New York over time. This book is the result. Working first in black and white and later in colour, he records the flag as part of everyday life, sometimes prominent, sometimes peripheral, and at times proud, worn, commercialised, or ambiguous. ‘The flag is not neutral; it has flown over liberation and oppression alike. It has reached across classes and regions, across political parties and generations. It has been stitched into schoolrooms, military funerals, protest marches, baseball games and front porches. It touches a lot of nerves: it means something to almost everyone.’ Rudi Thoemmes from the book’s essay. The American flag was first adopted in 1777 during the Revolutionary War as a banner for a new, experimental republic and over time it has accumulated many layers of meaning. In the nineteenth century it came to stand for the survival of the Union through civil war. By the early twentieth century it had moved into schools, parades and public rituals; the Pledge of Allegiance helped fix it in daily civic life, and during the World Wars it became a symbol of national unity and sacrifice. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, the flag