Now in its second edition, A History of Interior Design delivers the inside story on 6,000 years of personal and public space. John Pile acknowledges that interior design is a field with unclear boundaries, in which construction, architecture, the arts and crafts, technology and product design all overlap. These topics are woven together in a fascinating narrative that runs from cave dwellings and temple architecture, through Gothic cathedrals and Renaissance palaces on to the grand civic spaces of the 19th century and the sleek interiors of modern skyscrapers. Embedded in a social and political context, detailed discussions of famous buildings, from the Parthenon to the Pompidou Centre, are interspersed with investigations of the domestic vernacular - the cottages, farmhouses, apartments and city terraces inhabited by ordinary people. New to the second edition is a chapter on the interior design history of Asian and Islamic traditions. There are 180 new images in the book, including furniture, textiles, lighting and product design.

John Pile was Professor of Design at the renowned Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, for most of his teaching career. He is the author of 12 books on furniture, colour, draughtsmanship, office planning and other aspects of interior design.