I don’t know why, but I just love stuff like this. I’d really like to get American Trademarks: a Compendium, published by Chronicle Books. When you read the blurb at that site, you see that Eric Baker (who currently blogs at DesignObserver.com) and Tyler Blik originally edited a three-volume set called Trademarks, but those have now been combined into one expanded volume with this book.
I gather that Baker and Blik traced the development of trademarks through several decades, starting with the 1920s. Perhaps the extra essays in the book deal with the most recent trademarks? That’s just a guess on my part.
The book has more than 1000 of what are called “iconic trademarks.” Though interestingly, at the Chronicle Books Blog, I don’t actually recognize very many of the examples posted. But I’m really interested in the history and design of these symbols. I don’t know what the legalities are, but I’ve long been tempted to create a Flickr set just of logos I’ve taken pictures of around Toronto.
Anyway, I’d love to have this book on my shelves. Alongside things like books about fonts and the history of the English language. Geeks R Us, eh? 
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This does look great! My husband is really interested in specifically publishers insignias & has been writing a whole blog series about it lately — it is very intriguing to see the progression.
That is a wonderful blog series! I need to find a couple of hours to devour that blog, I see! Thanks for the link!
I don’t know what it is about things like this — fonts and symbols and visual representations and whatnot — but they are absolutely fascinating.