America and Britain. Only an Ocean Between.

Pioneering design. First edition, first impression. A beautiful copy of this uncommon wartime educational book with charts by the Isotype Institute. This is the first in the "America and Britain" series produced to educate citizens of each nation about the other, explaining 'how Britain and America are alike or are different in their climate, their geography, their natural and human resources, their transport facilities and other basic conditions of life and work' and providing 'background for understanding newspaper items, films and stories about America' and vice versa (jacket blurb). The introduction is by John G. Winant, then the US ambassador to Great Britain.

Developed in the 1920s by Marie and Otto Neurath and Gerd Arntz, Isotype was a simplified visual method for conveying complex information. Isotype 'helped establish some of the core principles of graphic design' and its legacy 'can be seen everywhere from newspapers and textbooks to signage, transit maps, interfaces, and emojis' (Inglis, 'Meet Marie Neurath', AIGA Eye on Design, September 17, 2019).

At the start of the Second World War the Neuraths escaped Austria and then the Netherlands, finally settling in Britain where they established the Isotype Institute in 1942. Marie Neurath was 'a remarkable practitioner' who 'researched, calculated, and co-designed nearly every Isotype ever created, from the early days in Vienna in 1925 all the way to when she retired in 1971' and was almost certainly responsible for the charts in this book (Forrest, 'The Missing Legacy of Marie Neurath', Medium, January 20, 2020). Marie continued the work of Isotype after Otto's death in 1945 and became known for the series of children's books she published over the next twenty years, 'an ideal place to put Isotype's methods into practice' (Inglis).

First edition, first impression; 8vo; 18 colour charts of which some are double page, 32 illustrations from photographs, contemporary Christmas card of Elizabeth Wray loosely inserted, ownership signature of G. Howell to front free endpaper, just a little light spotting to the endpapers and edges of the text block, contents fresh; original blue cloth, titles to spine and pictorial design to upper board in black, cloth very slightly rubbed at the tips, an excellent copy in the lightly rubbed and toned jacket; 64pp.