Amplified: A Design History of the Electric Guitar

 Amplified: A Design History of the Electric Guitar by Paul Atkinson, 272 pgs. 

This book looks at the guitar as an object through the lens of design. Paul Atkinson, a professor of Design and Design History at Sheffield Hallam University, takes the reader on a thorough deep-dive into one of the most popular and culturally significant instruments of the last century. You may think that the state of the inventor of the guitar is a settled matter, but the truth is far more complex than that. "The emergence of the electric guitar was, like many other inventions, the result of a series of parallel developments." Several groups interested in the development of the guitar were simultaneously experimenting with similar designs and effects at nearly the same time. From there, it was just a rush to the market to get them into musicians' hands. The most popular guitar models in history are knows as the "Holy Trinity"--the Stratocaster, the Les Paul and the Telecaster. These were the models that have outlasted all others in terms of cultural influence, sound and style. Although many luthiers and instrument companies have tried to break this hold on the market, those three models have survived mostly unchanged for the last 50 years, which is likely a testament to how well-designed they were the first time around. Atkinson starts off in the early 1900s, covering Gibson's wide-body archtops (made wide in order to sound louder on big-band stages), to the implementation of electric pick-ups to increase volume, all the way to the 1980s when synthesizers began merging with guitars. While Fender and Gibson loom large in this book (as they should), Atkinson spends ample time reviewing more interesting models that stood-out but never really captured the public imagination. The author is not interested in promoting one brand or style over the other; this is purely a book for the love of the instrument in its many forms. Recommended for adults and teens.