On the button the significance of an ordinary item - Edwards, Nina (I.B. Tauris, 2012)
Includes bibliographical references (p. [249]-253) and index
As a notion -- Why we collect -- The enlightenment button -- Gentlemen prefer buttons -- Commerce and cuteness -- War and grief -- Culture and creed -- Sex, love and buttons -- Arts and crafts -- Dash my buttons!
On the Button is an inventive and unusual exploration of the cultural history of the button, illustrated with a multiplicity of buttons in black and white and color. It tells tales of a huge variety of the button's forms and functions, its sometimes uncompromising glamour, its stronghold in fashion and literature, its place in the visual arts, its association with crime and death, and its tender call to nostalgia and the sentimental. There have been works addressed to the button collector and general cultural histories, but On the Button links the two, revealing why we are so attracted to buttons, and how they punch way above their weight