Sara Kristoffersson's compelling study provides the first sustained critical history of IKEA. Kristoffersson argues that the company's commercial success has been founded on a neat alignment of the brand with a particular image of Swedish national identity - one that is bound up with ideas of social democracy and egalitarianism - and its material expression in a pared-down, functional design aesthetic. Employing slogans such as "Design for everyone" and "Democratic design," IKEA signals a rejection of the stuffy, the 'chintzy', and the traditional in both design practices and social...