The first object to carry the name Minox was a subminiature camera, conceived as early as 1922 but invented and produced only later, in 1936, by the Baltic German Walter Zapp. From 1937 to 1943 the Minox was made by the Latvian company VEF; after the Second World War the camera was redesigned and production began in Germany. Zapp had originally wanted the Minox to be a camera for everyone, and Mark van den Brink takes it at its word, filling this small thick volume with what such a camera sees.