Clive Dilnot is professor of Design Studies at Parsons The New School for Design, New York, USA. Recent publications include Ethics? Design? (2005) and, as co-author, Design and the Question of History (Bloomsbury, 2014).

• Introduction: Clive DilnotI. Key ThemesIntroduction 1. What is Design? 2. Commerce or Culture? Industrialization and Design3. Design from the Standpoint of Economics/Economics from the Standpoint of DesignII. Design in History & the History of Design Introduction (A) Designing and Making in the Pre-Industrial World4. Some Lessons of Design History5. Crafts, Commerce, Industry6. Chinese Design: What Can We Learn from the Past?7. Three moments in the History of Making: Nomads, Traders, Slaves(B) Designing in the Industrial World8. The 'American System' and Mass Production9. Writing the History of Design in the Industrial World10. The Growth of Industrial Design in Japan(C) Design in Germany 1870-194511. Government Policy & German Design 1870-191812. The Industrial Applications of Tubular Steel 13. Modernism and Archaism in Design in the Third Reich III. Design, Business, EconomicsIntroduction (A) Corporate design strategiesSharon Helmer Poggenpohl: Design between Economics and Practice14. GM: The Price of Corporate Arrogance 15. Everything Changes, Nothing Alters 16. Design Management in Phillips in the 1980s17. Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks: How RCA is using Design as a Strategic Tool 18. Current and Future Demands on Hong Kong Designers(B) National Design PoliciesCarlos Texeiria: John Heskett and design policy 19. National Design Policy and Economic Change20. Learning from Germany's Integrated Design Policy21. Design and Industry in China22. A Design Policy for the UK: Three Suggestions(C) Creating Value by DesignTore Kristensen: John Heskett's contribution to the business and economics of design23. Creative Destruction: The Nature and Consequences of Change through Design24. Product Integrity25. Cultural Human Factors26: Creating Economic Value by DesignIV. ReflectionsIntroduction27. Past, Present and Future in Design 28. Reflections on Design and Hong Kong29. On WritingV. Last Words30. Can the Centre Hold?List of acronyms ContributorsPermissions and Acknowledgments Appendix: A first bibliography of John Heskett's published workIndex

The Heskett reader is a must for designers, historians, economists, and students who are considering the charged relationship between design and the world. In a remarkable collection, Dilnot has brought together essays that make Heskett’s global and multidisciplinary reach evident. It is a pleasure to see Heskett’s classic texts - along with some of his unpublished work - brought together in one marvellous book.