Beauty and Power serves as an accessible general introduction to the origins
of modern design and an original contribution to understanding the
role that cross-cultural processes have played in design's history. How did
modern design in its origins begin to transform lives globally? This is the
first history of the origins of modern design intended for general readers
to discuss examples from Africa, Asia, and the Islamic World. Beauty and
Power not only accounts for cross-cultural sources and effects, it supports
their centrality to the growth of modern design.
National competitiveness in this age of empire forms the basis of emerging global design.
Throughout the period and in all its cultural contexts, a focus on the
display of wealth and power through ornament helped distinguish social
classes. Increasingly, citizens in the West borrowed ornamental motifs
from non-Western cultures and the reverse was also true. While this book
presents these visual aspects of design, it also seeks the meanings associated
with the visual traits. Increasingly, those meanings emerged out of the
economic interaction between members of different nations.