The book ('Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural Modernism') examines the work of four historians of architectural modernism and the ways in which their histories were constructed as more or less overt programs for the theory and practice of design in a contemporary context. Author Anthony Vidler looks at the historical approaches of Emil Kaufmann, Colin Rowe, Manfredo Tafuri and Reyner Banham, and the specific versions of modernism advanced by their respective historical narratives. The book demonstrates the inevitable collusion between history and design that pervades all modern architectural discourse, and that has given rise to some of the most interesting architectural experiments of the postwar period.