Food ¦ Clothes & Uniforms

These photographic history books are illustrated with fascinating 'then and now' pictures based around popular subjects. The essential thing in assembling books such as these is to choose good pictures and Cox and Hughes have done this very well. For instance, in Food a colour photograph of an electrically transported, pasteurised-bottle-dispensing casually dressed milk-woman de nos jours is contrasted with a 1910 black-and-white photograph of a uniformed male employee of Welfords and Premier dishing out 'London's safest milk' by the doorstep jugful from handcart no. 269. He received cash in hand from pinafored servant-gel.

Each spread has a 'Now' on the left and a 'Then' (with date) on the right, which pleasantly contrasts colour and monochrome. For fluent readers there is good background information tucked away at the back of the book, but the text around each photograph is minimal. This is fine as the pictures' real job is to initiate conversations, jerk memories and reward observation, and the books are as good for non-readers as they are for polymaths. But the more minimal the text the better what little writing there is needs to be, and statements like (in Food, p.24) 'This van sells take-away food. It is called take-away food because the people who buy it do not prepare or cook it.' are inexcusably inaccurate and misleading. And why use 'advert' to mean 'advertisement' when 'ad' is shorter and easier (although neither contraction is legitimate in a formal text)?

So, great pictures but for the rest of the series the publishers should abandon words and instead provide a complimentary great-gran with each set.