Modern Man in the Making

1939. NEURATH, Otto. Modern Man in the Making. 159, [1] pp., illustrated throughout with charts and diagrams. Small 4to, 265 x 205 mm, bound in publisher's blue cloth with title in silver on spine and front cover. New York: Knopf, 1939. In the 1920s, Neurath developed the "Museum of Society and Economy" as a means of conveying complicated social and economic facts. Together with the illustrator Gerd Arntz and with Marie Reidemeister, Neurath created "Isotype," a symbolic way of representing quantitative information via easily interpretable icons. Isotype was hugely influential, especially in the Soviet Union. It was much used as a design element, and is, in fact, still omnipresent. Modern Man in the Making is Neurath's magnum opus, and despite being a trade book, is notoriously hard to find. Spine faded, otherwise fine. See: Otto Neurath, The Language of the Global Polis.