Consumers, Tinkerers, Rebels ― The People Who Shaped Europe

Who has decided how Europeans have dressed and dwelled? Traveled and dined? Worked and played? Who, in fact, can be credited with the shaping of Europe?

Certainly inventors, engineers, and politicians played their parts. But in the making of Europe, consumers, tinkerers, and rebels were an unrecognized force - until now. In this book, historians Ruth Oldenziel and Mikael Hard spotlight the people who 'made' Europe - by appropriating technology, protesting for and against it. Using examples from Britain and the Continent, the authors illustrate the conflicts that accompanied the modern technologies, from the sewing machine to the bicycle, the Barbie doll to personal computers. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of how Europeans have lived, from the 1850s to the current century.

Ruth Oldenziel is Full Professor in American and European History at the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. Her publications include books and articles in American, European, gender, and technology studies: 'Islands' (in Entangled Geographies edited Gabriel Hecht MIT 2011) Cold War Kitchen (MIT, 2009 co-edited with Karin Zachmann); Making Technology Masculine: (AUP 1999); 'Boys and their Toys in America' (Technology and Culture 1997).

Mikael Hard is Full Professor of History of Technology at Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany. His publications include Hubris and Hybrids: A Cultural History of Technology and Science (Routledge 2005; co-written with Andrew Jamison) and Urban Machinery: Inside Modern European Cities (MIT Press 2008; co-edited with Thomas J. Misa).