Fashion — a ridiculously massive book weighing in at 3 kilos — is the latest work of Magnum photographer Mark Power and collects images from 27 years of his professional practice of photographing the human-made: the unveiling of the Airbus 30, tract houses in the Nevada desert, turbine factories in China, and more. We’ll examine this hefty book in the context of other collections of imagery documenting “progress” and manufacturing — from the early technological euphoria of the beginning of the 20th century (Lewis Hine, Charlie Chaplin) to the sobering reconciliation with the limits of growth in the “man-altered landscapes” of the New Topographics.

This episode is Part I of a look at the structure of big books — Part II will follow with JH Engström’s recent Dimma Brume Mist in March.