Written by a well-known British design historian at the Royal College of Art, this 270-page clothbound overview of design and designers, arranged by style and movement as well as time period, features 500 full-color illustrations, a helpful glossary, and worldwide directories of manufacturers, museums, and other design sources. (Copyright © by Roy R. Behrens, from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol 15 No 2, Winter 1999-2000.)

Excellent brief over view with short bio and photos of the major designers of our century. The only drawback is that the author has a clear bias towards furniture, so that most of the photos show furniture even when the designers have created products.

This book is a great source book for any designer. It offers a guide of design over the past century and it is an essential book for a designers collection. The New Design Source book completely encompasses every section of design that it covers. The background and historical references are complete and a great reference for sourcing. This book also offers its' reader the opportunity to see almost every aspect of design that took place during each time period it covers complete with detailed descriptions and photographs to exemplify the qualties and aspects of design for each period.

As an engineer working in the plastics field for two score years, and as an amateur historian of the subject, I was attracted to Sparke's edited book, hoping to learn more about my chosen field. And I did. First off, the book is filled with gorgeous photos, surrounded, as it were, by easy-to-read text.

To me, Part One, on prehistory through 1914, is most fascinating, quite accurate and replete with excellent photos.

Beyond that, however, I was disappointed, because the book emphasizes consumer products to the almost exclusion of industrial products. Now of course, we technical guys know all about how plastic pipe and siding carpeting has revolutionized the construction industry and about how plastics packaging has reduced produce spoilage and product pilfering. But these aren't as glitzy as lamp shades and plastic furniture and "Tupperware."

I guess this book fulfills a need if you're only interested in consumer products made of plastics. But this book offers little help to one who needs to know how plastics have revolutionized the world economy.