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Air-conditioning America: Engineers and the Controlled Environment, 1900-1960 (Johns...
Product Review Americans now spend most of their summertime in air-conditioned buildings or cars. In Air-Conditioning America, historian Gail Cooper shows that this is not necessarily an inevitable consequence of technological progress. Although we think of it as a form of cooling, its name shows that air-conditioning was first aimed at "it isn't the heat, it's the humidity" problems. From its first use in cloth or gunpowder factories to the annual summer brownouts, the progress of a.c. has been a struggle between social groups and what Edward Tenner calls "the revenge of unintended consequences" in Why Things Bite Back. Rational, technocratic engineers have sought perfect artificial weather; managers and builders have wanted low construction costs; electric companies need income during the summer months; and the people who actually use the equipment have their own definitions of comfort that might not be a uniform room temperature of 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Cooper's style is medium-academic and may not be for everyone, but her book is full of insight into the forces shaping the way Americans live and use their technology. --Mary Ellen Curtin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Product Review "It sounds like a technical history, and indeed it is, but along the way Cooper shows how ideology, social relations, and economics affect the technology, and how it affects them. In this way, we can learn much from such books -- 'cultural studies' seeming so much livelier when borne up by material culture than by the unsteady scaffold of abstract theory." -- Giles Foden, Times Literary Supplement "Gail Cooper's study is a welcome addition to the history of technology and urban history. Its strength lies in mapping out fundamental engineering and marketing issues about a technology that has had a profound impact on the very nature of inside environments." -- Martin V. Melosi, American Historical Review "A groundbreaking study in the early business development of a technology that many Americans now take for granted." -- APT Bulletin
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