Wednesday, January 31, 7:30 pm
Presentation on Made to Break by Giles Slade

Alma Van Dusen Room, VPL, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia

Giles Slade, who I’ve written about before, will speak at the Vancouver Public Library next week on tackling the problem of e-waste and the inception of our culture of consumption and waste.

Quote: From: Harvard University Press, the publisher:

Made to Break is a history of twentieth-century technology as seen through the prism of obsolescence. America invented everything that is now disposable, Giles Slade tells us, and he explains how disposability was in fact a necessary condition for America’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 inventions of branding, packaging, and advertising; the contest for market dominance between GM and Ford; the struggle for a national communications network, 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.