Description
Book SynopsisA visual history of the electronic age captures the collision of technology and art—and our collective visions of the future.
Trade Review"Fascinating…. [A] fantastically geeky visual tour of tech industry history as seen through the lens of the commercial art that helped popularize it." -- Meg Miller - Fast Company
"Attentive readers of Prelinger’s lively chronology will come away with an appreciation of how the visual representations of technology are integral to our understanding of it." -- Chris Rasmussen - Bookforum
"Unusual and insightful…. Filled with retro tech-industry ads, magazine covers and other commercial artworks, this erudite book takes readers on a cultural history tour that sharply reveals ‘art’s ability to touch the intangible and render it visible.’" -- John Wilwol - San Francisco Chronicle
"[An] unusual and compelling study." -- Nature
"An essential and eye-popping visual history of electronics, a glimpse of the electronic infrastructure captured in the brief moment before it miniaturized down to a scale too small for the eye to see, disappearing from our ordinary view forever, even as it burrowed into our buildings, streets, vehicles and even our bodies." -- Cory Doctorow coeditor of Boing Boing and author of In Real Life and Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free
"A highly original cultural history of 20th-century technology examined through the lens of commercial art…. Sophisticated in its grasp of science and technological history but also accessible to general readers." -- Kirkus Reviews
"A tour de force of the computer and electronic age that takes readers on a fascinating voyage that spans everything from graphic renderings of theoretical space gondolas to depictions of transistors as the route to utopia. Like Trevor Paglen’s exploration of the visual aspects of secrecy, Megan Prelinger’s
Inside the Machine provides readers with a unique window into the history of electronics and computer science during the Cold War, and beyond. Merging science with art, Prelinger challenges our linear notions of scientific progress, helping us see a new dimension to our modern technological world." -- Sharon Weinberger, author of Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon’s Scientific Underworld
"Because electrons are mostly invisible, our visualizations of them tell us more about our dreams than about electrons. This cool and unusual book gathers our earliest collective dreams about circuits and electronics and makes them visible. It got me thinking about our assumptions for tomorrow. I love it when a book like this makes me see the world differently." -- Kevin Kelly, senior maverick for Wired magazine and author of What Technology Wants
