Tattoo History: A Source Book, by Steve Gilbert in an informational book informing readers about the rich history of the ancient art of tattooing. Gilbert’s book is to be an unbiased record of tattooing through history. At the beginning of this book, Gilbert admits to being a tattoo addict and created this book because of the knowledge and importance in tattooing. The author believes that by understanding tattooing you can understand the opinions and ideas of our ancestors. By undressing the opinions and ideas of our ancestors Gilbert believes that we can learn more about ourselves as well as our future. The author writes about the origin of tattooing to the modern perspective to prove that tattooing is culture rich and informs the future. The information Gilbert uses to compose his book is accurate and comes from many different vetted sources. The perspective of this book begins with his own confessions and changes throughout the book depending on the chapter. There is a multiplicity of perspectives given through the different cultures’ perspective on tattoos as well as the perspectives of a variety of professionals. These perspectives in the book allow for an array of insight and help the reader understand the complexity of the dislike and like of tattoos. Steve Gilbert, the author, was a medical illustrator and a freelance writer as well as a part-time worker at a tattoo parlor. Gilbert himself has a variety of tattoos and his works have been published in International Tattoo Art and other tattoo magazines. Gilbert was well-liked among the tattoo community and has contributed to the community as well. Gilbert, a tattoo enthusiast, takes a large amount of information about the history of tattooing and makes it digestible in his book, Tattoo History: A Source Book. Gilbert’s enthusiasm is seen in the book in a couple of chapters but, the book is purely informational when it comes down to the facts and writing of the history of tattooing. Steve Gilbert’s opinions in his book are seen in “Confessions of a Tattoo Addict” and expresses the beauty in tattoos from a personal anecdote. I believe that Gilbert and I have many of the same views surrounding tattooing.