I finished Kinross’ Modern Typography last week, but it will take a while (and probably a few subsequent readings of things in it) before I really digest all of it. It might be the most lucid examination of the whole notion of “Modernism” I’ve ever read, because it views it not as a stylistic period, but as a fundamental change in the way things were done that naturally influenced the end results. From this perspective, the whole history of movable type in the West is a result of modernism, and so the book examines the layers of causes and reactions and counter-reactions that are all a part of Modernism in some way or another.
Note to self: Pick up Natalia Ilyin’s Chasing the Perfect one of these days. She seems to have similar ideas about opening up the definition of Modernism and modernity.
Kinross, Robin, Modern Typography. London, Hyphen Press, 1992