Journal of Design History Advance Access published October 9, 2012

Journal of Design History Vol. 00 No. 00

Book Review

purpose, this book brings together a large variety of

case studies, which cover a wide geographical, historical
and disciplinary range.

Global Design History

Glenn Adamson, Giorgio Riello & Sarah Teasley (eds),
Routledge, 2011. 225pp., 23 b&w illus., cloth, 80.00. ISBN:
9780415572859; paper, 21.99. ISBN: 9780415572873

This book starts from the premise that global design

history is not a topic but a methodology (p.3), distinct
from transnational and world histories of design.
Unlike the latter, which have aimed to expand the geographical reach of design history through a better representation of other nations in research, global design
history is meant to focus on the globally interconnected
and multiple ways in which design is practised. For this

Among papers that can be associated with the connections model, three concentrate on the early modern
period, challenging the commonplace view of globalization as a twentieth- and twenty-first century phenomenon. In The Global Renaissance, Marta Ajmar-Wollheim
and Luca Mol demonstrate the dizzying movement
of raw materials, dyes, and finished and semi-finished
goods in that period as evidence of the global interconnections that underlay Renaissance material culture.
Anne Gerritsens piece focuses on one such commodity,
the blue-and-white porcelain from Jingdezhen, in order
to describe the global dynamics of production, trade
and consumption that converge on that one site. In
their responses, Dana Leibsohn contributes to this general picture by indicating the conflicting nature of such
global networks, whilst Beverly Lemire underlines the
significance of the material and symbolic properties of
the objects themselves. As a counterpoint, John Styles
presents a strong argument against the significance of
overseas connections, particularly Indian cotton, on the
emergence of Western European fashion, and instead
points to economic competition within Europe. In
response, Prasannan Parthasarathi indicates the hybridity
of the products involved in this exchange, and calls for

The Author [2012]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Design History Society. All rights reserved.

Downloaded from http://jdh.oxfordjournals.org/ by V B on March 2, 2013

The editors introduction sets out to sketch a methodology for global design history, and describes two models:
the connections model, which studies network relations
and flows of goods and information across geographical
boundaries; and the comparative model, which aims to
reveal national and regional difference and discontinuities. Whilst the introduction could have benefited from
more theoretical specificity, it skilfully sets the scene for the
diverse studies presented thereafter. The book further promotes diversity in approach by coupling each essay with a
response. This strategy is immensely successful, since the
responses not only facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue and
highlight key themes, but also often suggest further global
connectivity, pointing towards a larger set of global relations than considered in the studies to which they respond.

a two-sided consideration of the textile trade between

Europe and the Indian subcontinent.

A number of chapters focus particularly on the asymmetries in the flow of information and products across
the globe. Peter McNeil, in his study of Easton Pearson,
describes how the fashion house painstakingly brings
together designers based in Australia, ethnic imagery,
indigenous textiles and their artisans, and an international
audience of fashion. In this, McNeil and his respondent,
Shehnaz Suterwalla, underline the tension between the
Orientalist implications of the consumption of exotic
textiles and the designerly vision that respects and nurtures the craft practices of indigenous women. Similarly,
Michael J.Golecs piece investigates, through the analysis
of an AT&T promotional booklet published in 1927, the
early twentieth-century discourse on the telephone as a
global network that connected the American consumer
to the far corners of the world. As Golecs account and
Anne Balsamos response show, the booklet partakes in
a process of othering via its representations of the globe,
whilst hinting between the lines at the symbolic violence
involved in that representation. Tom Barker and Ashley
Halls report on GoGlobal Ghana, a collaborative project
between RCA in London and KNUST in Ghana, relates to
these issues in a different manner, that is, from the viewpoint of the practitioner rather than the critic. Shannon

The papers that can be considered under the comparative model include John V.Maciuikas essay, which lays
bare the Deutscher Werkbunds links with the economic
and political climate of the period, specifically with the
pre-First World War German foreign policy of commercial expansion. As Paul Betts responds, Maciuikas
insights resonate with the history of design institutions
in other countries of the same period. Victor Margolin,
too, in his intricate discussion of the development of
industrial and communication design in India, underlines the relevance of economic and political history
for design historical research. Christopher Pinney, in
his response, complicates Margolins discussion further via a complementary analysis which brings global
exchanges of aesthetic influence into the equation. In
another piece concerned with British colonial relations,
Dipti Bhagat writes on the South African colony and
the decision to present itself in the 19241925 British
Empire Exhibition as a white, modern, yet distinctively
South African country. Angus Lockyers response, however, draws attention to the limits of an analysis based
on identity, and invites the reader to think of exhibits in
terms of geographically dispersed processes of production and presentation.
Other chapters engage in more explicit comparisons.
Gkhan Karaku documents the emergence of a local
furniture design practice in Turkey, which has produced
modern furniture with non-industrial manufacturing
techniques. Edward S.Cooke, Jr., in his critical response,
questions the uniqueness of the Turkish experience, and
compares Karaku account with the history of similar
practices in the USA. Christine M.E. Guths piece looks
at fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Japan, and how the
unrefined domestic substitutes to luxury tea ware from
China later rose in popularity, triggering new imports of
similar, unrefined style from Korea. As Guth and her commentator Maxine Berg exchange, this forms a basis for
comparison with examples of import substitution from
the same period in Europe. Basile Zimmerman compares
Happy Network, a social networking site based in China,
to Facebook as an example for global exchange of design
ideas. As his respondent Ngai-Ling Sum shows, the firstperson descriptions that his analysis provides are useful
in opening up questions regarding the promotion of the
idea of fun against the background of global politics of
Internet censorship.

Book Review

Downloaded from http://jdh.oxfordjournals.org/ by V B on March 2, 2013

The essays by Jilly Traganou and Christopher Breward, on

the other hand, focus on the types of global connections
that are peculiar to late modernity. Traganou disputes
the relevance of nation-bound histories in architecture,
favouring instead narratives of global mobility; she cites
the plural belongings apparent in the biographies of
architects, international networks of architecture education and practice, and the receding significance of the
architectural site as the principal determinant of practice.
Lucia Allais response indicates the need for a further
move beyond issues of (national or individual) identity,
and towards a study of architecture as material engagement with the world. Breward narrates the development
of fashion cities from the fourteenth century onwards,
as certain urban centres appeared as nodes where highquality production, extensive mediation and cultures of
consumption converged. Although these were linked
among themselves via the circulation of fashion codes,
and with the larger world via colonial labour and supply
relations, it was after the 1950s that greater connectivity led to the dissolution of fashion cities as geographical locations. Or as Simona Segre Reinach puts in her
response, it became fashion as an autonomous discourse
that made fashion cities emerge, and not vice versa.

Mays critical response complements the discussion by

raising questions as to the viability, in considering design
as a tool for economic growth, of models based on the
export of cultural values.

Book Review

specificity of globalization; power asymmetries between

the West and the Rest in the form of colonialism, orientalism or centre-periphery relations; the limits of national
and regional histories of design, and of identity politics
in general; and the importance of global connections in
understanding design as situated practice. This makes the
book an excellent introductory resource for students of
design history and related subjects. To this end, the book
also includes a bibliography and a rich resource guide to
collections, organizations and projects of potential relevance to global historical investigation of design.
doi:10.1093/jdh/eps038
HarunKaygan
Middle East Technical University, Turkey
E-mail: harun.kaygan@gmail.com

Downloaded from http://jdh.oxfordjournals.org/ by V B on March 2, 2013

Overall, the shortness of the essays seems to prevent

authors from making explicit methodological elaborations.
Even though the two methodological themes (connections
and comparisons) suggested by the books editors are significant in their own right, the book does not describe
global design history as a distinct methodology. In the
introduction, the editors allude to actor-network theory
and Appadurais notion of flows (A. Appadurai, Modernity
in Large, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN,
1996) as possible theoretical tools that can help understand ways that design knowledge circulates in global
contexts, but they still do not elaborate on how each
perspective contributes to a methodological framework
beyond a general concern with (global) interactions.
Otherwise, the book presents a diverse range of insightful
new research that revolves around key debates on globalism and designnamely: historical and geographical