Refrigerator

by Rees, Jonathan; Schaberg, Christopher; Bogost, Ian

• ISBN13: 9781628924329
• ISBN10: 1628924322
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-09-24
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

It may be responsible for a greater improvement in human diet and longevity than any other technology of the last two thousand years-but have you ever thought seriously about your refrigerator? That box humming in the background displays more than you might expect, even who you are and the society in which you live. Jonathan Rees examines the past, present, and future of the household refrigerator with the aim of preventing its users from ever taking it for granted again. No mere container for cold Cokes and celery stalks, the refrigerator acts as a mirror-and what it reflects is chilling indeed.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Author Biography

Jonathan Rees is Professor of History at Colorado State University – Pueblo, USA. He is the author of Refrigeration Nation: A History of Ice Appliances and Enterprise (2013), Industrialization and the Transformation of American Life: A Brief Introduction (2012), Representation and Rebellion: A History of the Rockefeller Plan at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1914-1942 (2010), and Managing the Mills: Labor Policy in the American Steel Industry During the Nonunion Era (2004).

Table of Contents

I. Introduction
II. The Cold
III. The Creation of Cold (energy and the compressor)
IV. Inside and Outside (the container and the shelving)
V. The Refrigerant
VI. The Freezer
VII. Conclusion
Index