Gillian Darley's study is a social, cultural and architectural history of the factory from its beginnings to the present day. The book includes several images, some of which are in colour.

The first in Reaktion's new "Objekt" series, "Factory "examines the cultural importance of the factory in its many manifestations: as an icon of the industrial age; as innovator, as inno-vation and as laboratory, and shows more than 100 intriguing visual examples. Whether discussing the utopian schemes of Robert Owen or Claude Ledoux, the "cathedrals of industry" of Albert Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright, or the post-industrial revivals of former factories such as Renzo Piano's reconstruction of the Fiat Lingotto factory in Turin, this thematic account sheds a fascinating new light on the cultural connotations of these great modern monoliths.