Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers and Many Other Things Come To Be As They Are

by Harvey Molotch

Overview

Molotch takes us on a fascinating exploration into the worlds of technology, design, corporate and popular culture. We now see how corporations, designers, retailers, advertisers, and other middle-men influence what a thing can be and how it is made. We see the way goods link into ordinary life as well as vast systems of consumption, economic and political operation. The book is a meditation into the meaning of the stuff in our lives and what that stuff says about us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781135946340
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/23/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Harvey Molotch

Table of Contents

Preface. Acknowledgements. 1. Lash-Ups: Goods and Bads 2. Inside Stuff: How Professionals Do It 3. Form and Function 4. Changing Goods 5. Venues and Middlemen 6. Place in Product 7. Corporate Organization and the Design Big Thing 8. Moral Rules: New for Old

Editorial Reviews

"Successful products must fit into the whole panoply of life and society. The whole story can only be told by someone with a grand view of things, who sees both the trees of design and manufacturing and the forest of the social and political forces upon all of us. Three cheers for Harvey Molotch--this is a great book.
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-Donald A. Norman, author of "The Design of Everyday Things
"Manages to answer questions that have puzzled me for a lifetime. On nearly every page is some absolutely fascinating bit of useless information."
-Science

From the Publisher