{"product_id":"the-invention-of-design-a-twentieth-century-history-9781541600638","title":"The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History","description":"\u003cb\u003eA critical history of the idea of design--and its utopian promise \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Design has penetrated every dimension of contemporary society, from classrooms to statehouses to corporate boardrooms. It's seen as a kind of mega-power, one that can solve all our problems and elevate our experiences to make a more beautiful, more functional world. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e But there's a backstory here. In \u003ci\u003eThe Invention of Design\u003c\/i\u003e, designer and historian Maggie Gram investigates how, over the twentieth century, our economic hopes, fears, and fantasies shaped the idea of \"design\"--then repeatedly redefined it. Nearly a century ago, resistance to New Deal-era government intervention helped transform design from an idea about aesthetics into one about function. And at century's end, the dot-com crash brought us \"design thinking\" the idea that design methodology can solve any problem, small or large. To this day, design captures imaginations as a tool for fixing market society's broken parts from within, supposedly enabling us to thrive within capitalism's sometimes violent constraints. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e A captivating critical history, \u003ci\u003eThe Invention of Design\u003c\/i\u003e shows how design became the hero of many of our most hopeful stories--dreams, fantasies, utopias--about how we might better live in a modern world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Basic Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/03\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781541600638\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.50h x 6.25w x 1.09d","brand":"Maggie Gram","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45276428566709,"sku":"9781541600638","price":25.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_60b27bfd-4209-4c08-8a10-199b56e6e46d.jpg?v=1744123205","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-invention-of-design-a-twentieth-century-history-9781541600638","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}