Diagram: The Instrument Of Thought
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Yellowed
Long before the age of infographics and data visualisation, human beings were drawing diagrams — and Diagram: The Instrument of Thought argues that this impulse is one of the most fundamental expressions of the human mind. Keith Albarn and Jenny Miall Smith present a sweeping, intellectually ambitious survey of the diagram as a cognitive and cultural artefact, tracing its use across civilisations, disciplines, and centuries — from ancient cosmological charts and sacred geometry to the technical blueprints of the industrial age. The book chronicles how visual schematics have served not merely as illustrations of ideas, but as the very instruments through which thought is structured, communicated, and transformed. Ambitious in scope and richly illustrated, this work sits at a compelling crossroads between art history, philosophy, and the science of communication. Albarn and Smith write with a clarity and conviction that makes abstract ideas immediately tangible, drawing connections between mystical diagrams, mathematical proofs, and architectural plans to reveal a universal language hidden in plain sight. For anyone who has ever wondered why a spiral, a grid, or a circle can carry the weight of an entire worldview, this book offers a profound and genuinely surprising answer.
Author: Keith Albarn And Jenny Miall Smith
Format: Hardback
Published: 1977, Thames and Hudson
Genre: The arts
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Yellowed
Long before the age of infographics and data visualisation, human beings were drawing diagrams — and Diagram: The Instrument of Thought argues that this impulse is one of the most fundamental expressions of the human mind. Keith Albarn and Jenny Miall Smith present a sweeping, intellectually ambitious survey of the diagram as a cognitive and cultural artefact, tracing its use across civilisations, disciplines, and centuries — from ancient cosmological charts and sacred geometry to the technical blueprints of the industrial age. The book chronicles how visual schematics have served not merely as illustrations of ideas, but as the very instruments through which thought is structured, communicated, and transformed. Ambitious in scope and richly illustrated, this work sits at a compelling crossroads between art history, philosophy, and the science of communication. Albarn and Smith write with a clarity and conviction that makes abstract ideas immediately tangible, drawing connections between mystical diagrams, mathematical proofs, and architectural plans to reveal a universal language hidden in plain sight. For anyone who has ever wondered why a spiral, a grid, or a circle can carry the weight of an entire worldview, this book offers a profound and genuinely surprising answer.