Baron Joseph Friedrich von Racknitz's pioneering Presentation and History of the Taste of the Leading Nations in Relation to the Interior Decoration of Rooms and to Architecture (Darstellung und Geschichte des Geschmacks der vorzuglichsten Voelker in Beziehung auf die innere Auszierung der Zimmer und auf die Baukunst) is little known today. Racknitz, a German aristocrat, traced an early global history of design and ornament through discussions of what he distinguished as twenty-four regional historical tastes. He included a diverse group of ancient classical civilizations, European nations and peoples, Eastern civilizations, and more exotic reaches of the world.

This sensitive and informed translation by Simon Swynfen Jervis includes reproductions of the original color plates and essays on Racknitz's biography, his publication, and the deeper German Enlightenment context, making this an essential volume for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century architecture, decorative arts, and garden design.