Book Reviews ROGER MANVELL, The trial ofAnnie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, London, Elek, 1976, 8vo, pp. xi, 182, £5.95. One of the celebrated nineteenth-century trials was The Queen v. Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant in 1876. As free-thinkers they had re-published a forty-year-old pamphlet advocating contraception within marriage and were indicted the following year for having issued an "obscene libel".Much has been written on this episode and the main participants, but Mr. Manvell, a professional biographer, concentrates on the verbatim transcript of the trial (pp. 61-156), which was published in 1877. He uses the episode as a barometer of Victorian opinion regarding contraception and other matters of sex, and accurately sets the scene leading up to it and the aftermath. The moral conventions and susceptibilities of the time are well portrayed, and, as the author suggests, the whole event is reminiscent of the 1960 hearing of the prosecution of the publishers of Lady Chatterley's lover. In each case the legal proceedings helped to unfetter the British press. This book is a useful addition to the elucidation of a facet of Victorian society, as well as a further consideration of a fascinating reformer, Annie Besant (1847Besant ( -1933.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The MIT Press and Leonardo are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Leonardo. All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions animator is included (p. 321) envying composers of music, who need only a piano to test their works. One can appreciate his feeling that the dream of animators ought to be the invention of a score for a machine, which would then do all the animation work. A New Language for Environmental Design. LyndenHerbert. New York University Press, New York, 1972. 215 pp. Reviewed by: Rod Hackney** The basic message of this book is that the point now has been reached in the development of technology at which serious thought must be given to mankind's future goals. He argues that if this is not done further developments will have fatal consequences for the present overall environment and for the survival of the human species.The author delves much deeper into the subject of human existence than the title of his book suggests. For readers not familiar with the terminology of general systems theory and cybernetics, some background reading is necessary.He begins with a discussion of human beings from their very beginning to the present day and of the environment in which they live. He points out that general views of the purposes of life are changing in the light of new knowledge and of interpretations of the complexity of existence on the Earth. He then explains how he believes the new knowledge can best be used for the solution of problems with many variables by applying the principle of feedback.The final two chapters are entitled 'The Nature of Design' and 'Nature of Design Education' in which he advocates a new meta-language for architectural environmental design based upon the principles of cybernetics. He rejects the present teaching based on old value systems and concepts and recommends that educators turn to developing relevant sensory extentions and understandings. He concludes with a prediction of the effects cybernetic theory will have on the future of mankind in the Earth's environment.This book will come as a shock to architectural designers, a majority of them in Britain, who work only within the narrow constraints of their profession. They contrive architecture from their throne of professional elitism regardless of social conscience, as though they were blind to the wider context of the society in which they live. They are responsible for the decline of the architectural profession and the message of Lynden Herbert is directed to them. The arguments are clearly and adequately presented but whether they will provoke a positive response is a major concern to any thoughtful person. Archigram. Peter Cook, ed.For me the best thing ...