This is a 2019 reprint of the book first published in 1992. Kinross presents convincing arguments that ‘modern typography’ is more than just a modernism of style. Rather it is the attempt to work in the spirit of rationality, for clear and open communication. The opening chapters discuss the period around 1700 when typography separated from printing, and formed a distinct discipline. Other chapters follow trace the history of typography up to the present moment. Besides the discussion of developments in the UK, the USA and Western Europe, Kinross provides concise accounts of modernist typography in Central Europe between the wars and in Switzerland in the 1950s and 1960s. Typography, in this book is considered in the light of the social, political and technical changes of the recent period. The book concludes with a critical discussion of the literature of typographic history, and a full bibliography.