| Air-conditioning America: Engineers and the Controlled Environment, 1900-1960 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) |  | Author: Professor Gail Cooper
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $48.00
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Seller: cliosbookshelf
Sales Rank: 2,688,267
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0801857163
Dewey Decimal Number: 697.930973
EAN: 9780801857164
ASIN: 0801857163
Publication Date: April 3, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: With dust jacket. Name on flyleaf and some underlining in pen in Introduction and lightly scattered throughout.
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Product Description
In this groundbreaking study, Gail Cooper shows that, from the outset, air conditioning has been the focus of conflict and controversy--well predating today's concerns about fluorocarbons and global warming. While a technical elite of designers, inventors, and corporate pioneers made a comprehensive plans for the new technology, their ideas were challenged by workers, consumers, government regulators, business competitors, and rival professionals.
Amazon.com 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
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