Cultural historian Maggie Gram traces how design—conceived as a tool for solving problems and crafting experience—evolved during the twentieth century. She explores shifts in political, economic, and social expectations that transformed design into a pervasive force, from the New Deal’s functional aesthetics to the dot-com era’s emphasis on “design thinking.” The book illuminates how hopes, fears, and utopian ambitions are embedded in design’s rise as a kind of societal panacea