Dating from the 1850s to the First World War, the Arts and Crafts Movementas an international phenomenon of enormous scope and influence. Itncompassed everything from architecture to town planning, metalwork andmbroidery, in places as diverse as California and Budapest. Born of thinkersnd practitioners in Victorian England its ideological currents reflect thera's most pressing social, political and artistic concerns. In this bookosalind Blakesley explores the common ideas that give cohesion to a movementf otherwise bewildering breadth and stylistic heterogeneity. At the originsf the movement was a reaction against industrialization, the long-standingivision between traditional crafts and Fine Art and the over-elaboraternamentation which disguised an object or building's true 'function'. Earlyritish Arts and Crafts practitioners campaigned for a revival of old craftechniques, for the elevation of the applied arts and for 'honesty' in design,deas that were picked up and developed across Europe and the United States,ith national variants quickly emerging.;Germany, for example, recognized the