TY - BOOK AU - Slade,Giles TI - Made to break: technology and obsolescence in America SN - 0674022033 AV - T 173.8 S53.2007 PY - 2007///, CY - Cambridge, Massachusetts PB - Harvard University Press KW - Technological innovations KW - United States KW - Innovaciones tecnológicas KW - Estados Unidos N1 - Incluye referencias bibliográficas e índice; Repetitive Consumption -- The Annual Model Change -- Hard Times -- Radio, Radio -- The War and Postwar Progress -- The Fifties and Sixties -- Chips -- Weaponizing Planned Obsolescence -- Cell Phones and E-Waste N2 - "Made to Break is a history of twentieth-century technology as seen through the prism of obsolescence. America invented disposability, Giles Slade tells us, and he explains how this concept was in fact a necessary condition for the nation's rejection of tradition and our acceptance of change and impermanence. His book shows us the ideas behind obsolescence at work in such American milestones as the invention of branding, packaging, and advertising; the contest for market dominance between GM and Ford; the struggle for a national communications network; and the development of electronic technologies - and with it, the avalanche of electronic consumer waste that will overwhelm America's landfills and poison its water within the coming decade." "This book gives us a detailed and harrowing picture of how, by choosing to support ever-shorter product lives, we may well be shortening the future of our way of life as well."--Jacket ER -