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

By Harvey Molotch

Book 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415950422
• ISBN13: 9780415950428
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Why some designs remain the same and some are constantly changing

Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers, And Many Other Things Came To Be As They Are isn't just a review of invention history: Molotch spoke with product designs, marketers, and everyone involved in making everyday products part of our lives, surveying design options, the psychology behind consumer choices, and more. The origins of each product involve a life and evolutionary process: Molotch explains why some designs remain the same and some are constantly changing.

A must read

Harvey Molotch gets network thinking. More than that, he does it. In his book, "Where Stuff Comes From", he shows, with brilliant simplicity, the complex web of interactions that lie behind creation and production of the everyday stuff that surrounds us. This is a book that every thinking designer should read. Actually, it's a book that anyone who cares about the world we live in should read. Sensible, humane and thoughtful, it brightened up my day.