About the Cover Illustration

The illustration on the cover of Android in Action, Second Edition is taken from a French book of dress customs, Encyclopédie des Voyages by J. G. St. Saveur, published in 1796. Travel for pleasure was a relatively new phenomenon at the time and illustrated guides such as this one were popular, introducing both the tourist as well as the armchair traveler to the inhabitants of other regions of the world, as well as to the regional costumes and uniforms of France.

The diversity of the drawings in the Encyclopédie des Voyages speaks vividly of the uniqueness and individuality of the world’s countries and regions just 200 years ago. This was a time when the dress codes of two regions separated by a few dozen miles identified people uniquely as belonging to one or the other, and when members of a social class or a trade or a tribe could be easily distinguished by what they were wearing.

This was also a time when people were fascinated by foreign lands and faraway places, even though they could not travel to these exotic destinations themselves. Dress codes have changed since then and the diversity by region and tribe, so rich at the time, has faded away. It is now often hard to tell the inhabitant of one continent from another. Perhaps, trying to view it optimistically, we have traded a world of cultural and visual diversity for a more varied personal life. Or a more varied and interesting intellectual and technical life.

We at Manning celebrate the inventiveness, the initiative, and the fun of the computer business with book covers based on native and tribal costumes from two centuries ago brought back to life by the pictures from this travel guide.