Regular Polytopes by H. S. M. Coxeter (review)

Books 83 that, and one knows only too well the threat to their survival. Hippopotomus and walrus tusk ivory is too flinty and brittle and finding a reliable supplier of unicorn horns is impossible these days. The illustrations of patterns produced by the eccentric chuck and eccentric cutting frame in combination are a 19th-century preview of what some artists are now making with digital computers. What I wanted to find in this reprint and could not was a detail drawing of the Holtzapffel lathe complete and set up with the overhead belt linkage to the cutting frame drive as well as the headstock spindle. I want to be able to dream that I could successfully operate this engine of civilization. One of the lathes in my shop, built in the early 18OO’s,might be adapted to the Hotzapffel concepts, if the book‘s descriptions were more complete. This book will certainly expand the visual imagination of an advanced ornamental turner, but the intricacies of its contents are likely to overwhelm neophytes. Introduction to Engineering Design and Graphics. George C. Beakley and Ernest G. Chilton. Macmillan, New York, 1973. 818 pp., illus. $14.95. Reviewed by Dick Land* Permit me to rave about this book and carp about a few minor flaws. It reminds me of the old Wonder Books that young and old relished for the wealth of information brought together in copiously illustrated easily read texts. This book goes a step further-the text is carefully edited and tightly organized, with good proportions in topic lengths and subheadings, delightfully sprinkled with aphorisms and quotes set in wide margins and superbly illustrated. The graphic design is exemplary, as it should be, but in this case it surpasses my fondest desires. I am amazed that such a wealth of material can be so attractively assembled at so reasonable a price. It is a large book and the authors admit to sacrifice of depth for development in breadth in treating the major topicsinformation and motivation, design and graphics.. Traditional graphics such as lettering, drafting equipment, rendering of views and true lengths are covered in the last third of the book. These lead to more general considerations of graphic presentation, including comments on computer graphics. The first major section is the most ambitious in that the authors attempt to broaden the responsibility of designers by exploring it in social consciousness terms, appealing to creativity, presenting an excellent survey of design in nature and touching on aesthetics and design. The middle third’of the book, while stressing ecological and social consciousness, provides excellent examples of approaches to designs and their execution. The sections on models are especially valuable and the importance of economic factors in design is made more exciting by inclusion of the story of Chester Carlson’s struggle to bring into production the Xerox machine, which has revolutionized the duplication of graphic material. There are several appendices that conveniently supply fascinating data and case histories. An adequate index is provided. The authors suggest that this might be a design text either for a one-year college-level course or for selfinstruction . The information for an introduction to design and graphics is there, but there is so much else that I wondered if too many topics had been treated, but this consideration is overshadowed by both the directness of presentation and the successful assertion of design responsibility. The more I studied the text, the more lamentable I found the exposition on color. The only color plates in the book show (1) the spectrum, but greatly distorted, with a large yellow section and small green and blue sections and (2) color systems, with primary inks for printing, yellow, cyan and magenta, mislabeled yellow, blue and red! The accompanying text on color is variously misleading and incorrect. The section on the contentious *10 Trapelo Road, Belmont, MA 02178, U.S.A. question of creativity has some useful suggestions, but they are poorly supported and qualified in the light of the results of research in psychology. The discussion of fasteners and fastening is surprisingly weak. However, these flaws apply to only a very small part of the book. I believethat but fewreaders of Leonardowould...