Bürdek, B. E. (2005). Design: History, theory, and practice of product design (1st English ed.). Boston, MA: Birkhauser-Publishers for Architecture.
The best book on the history of modern design I have read. Thorough, detailed, complete. Covers everything: architecture, products, services, software from the Romans (briefly) to today. I learned tremendously. I first read the book on my electronic book reader (a Kindle) but the many excellent illustrations are critical to understanding the text, and they are pretty horrid on the Kindle, so I also got the printed book. Big, heavy, expensive - and worth every cent. (I am briefly mentioned a few times, including one paragraph which has my current favorite quote about my work: "Today his ideas about what he calls human-centered development are widely accepted, even if designers and engineers still come up with wildly different interpretations of what he actually meant" (p. 414).