Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-244) and index.

Foreword / Steven Heller -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Josef Müller-Brockmann: "schutzt das Kind!" and the mythology of Swiss design -- Koloman Moser's Thirteenth Secession Exhibition poster (1902): anatomy of a work of Viennese graphic design -- Cassandre and Dubonnet: art posters and publicité in interwar Paris -- Frank Zachary at Holiday: travel, leisure, and art direction in Post-World War II America -- Food, race, and the "New Advertising": the Levy's Jewish Rye Bread campaign 1963-1969 -- Graphic design and politics: Thomas Nast and the "TAMMANY TIGER LOOSE" -- The politics of learning: Dr. John Fell and the Fell Types at Oxford University in the later seventeenth century.

'Reading Graphic Design History' uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction and typography, often addressing issues of class, race and gender. David Raizman's innovative approach intentionally challenges the canon of graphic design history and various traditional understandings of graphic design. He re-examines 'icons' of graphic design in light of their local contexts, avoiding generalisation to explore underlying attitudes about various social issues. He encourages new ways of reading graphic design that take into account a broader context for graphic design activity, rather than broad views that discourage the understanding of difference and the means by which graphic design communicates cultural values.