Emphasis Art: A Qualitative Art Program for the Elementary School by Frank Wachowiak (review)

Books 171 Students can therefore build circuits as practical wozfiop projects and, by fiddling with component values as outlined in the text, see the theoretical principles work in practice. I conclude by saying that Jones has largely achieved his aims and has produced a useful, informativeand, above all, instructive book that (thanks to the paperback version by the publishers) is available at a very moderate price by text-book standards. Exploring a different aspect of electronics, Dummer has aimed at presenting the most comprehensive 'world wide summary of electronic inventions and discoveries'. However, the author points out that he has covered only inventions from Europe and the U.S.A. and does not include contributions from the Soviet Union and Japan. I sincerely hope that (despite the language translation difficultiesand costs) this will be done for the latter countries. This book is directed to a much wider readership than the first book reviewed and may be read usefully by sociologists and historians as well as technologically based researchers. People with thesedisciplinesmay wellbe interested in 'Why an invention was made', as well as in 'How it was made'. Viewed in this context, the different social conditions and pressures prevailing in areas other than the countries covered could well have provided different motives. Hence my hope that the scope of this work willbe widened in future editions of what promises to be a useful and innovative series of references. Having said that, I must redress this criticism with the comment that Dummer has bravely tackled a difficult field and has listed 450 of the principal inventions and discoveries that have made major contributions and changes to the course and progress of electronics. The task is difficultfor it would be all too easy to list 45,000inventions that have so contributed! As such, it is a valuable aid to authors and technical writers in the field of electronics who may wish a reference and date of some historical invention or some patent on which their present work is based. The book is wellcross-indexed and referenced, and spans the period from 1642 to 1977, with each invention and each discovery referenced in terms of historical source, date and patent number (wherever appropriate and possible). The book has been reproduced directly from the author's typescript in order to reduce publishing costs, but this does not detract from its presentation or readability. No matter what the motive is for originally consulting it, one inevitably 'browses' through the pages. Once picked up, it isvery difficultto put down and may be inclined to 'walk out of legal ownership' when handled by unscrupulous persons! About Design. Ken Baynes. Design Council, London, 1976. 159 pp., illus. Paper, £3.65. Design through Discovery. 3rd ed. Marjorie Elliot Belvin. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1977.404 pp., illus. Paper. Reviewed by Rod Hackney* Both these books are very similar, and I found upon reading through one that much of the principal ground isrepeated in the other. Therefore, it is necessary for readers to purchase only one of the books in order to avail themselves of the general aim of both authors, which is, in simple terms, to allow the lay public to appreciate design in the artifacts they see. Baynesexamines design education and its general importance. He analyzes the many different ways in which people have tried to answer the question 'What is design?', and he looks particularly at the position in the mid-1970s of British design in communities and in education. His book, which is a nice handy size and smaller and shorter than the second book, is well illustrated with black and white photographs. What isvery useful isthe list of references for interested readers who wish to explore further the subject he discusses. The book by Belvin is much wider in content and its production is of better quality, including the illustrations, some of whichare in colour. It is divided into four parts. The first part has chapters on line, space, shape, colour and texture; the second deals with materials available to designers, such as wood, metal, clay, etc.; the third, although entitled Design in the Media, has chapters on painting, sculpture, photography and prints; and the...