Brief Histories of Everyday Objects. This item is unavailable.Brief Histories of Everyday Objects

In the tradition of A Cartoon History of the Universe and, most recent, Randall Munroe's What If? comes Brief Histories of Everyday Objects - an intrepid, graphic tour through the unusual stories behind the creation of some of the overlooked items that surround us in our daily lives. Chapters introduce readers to a cast of inventors whose ideas led to the ballpoint pen riots, cowboy wars, and really bad Victorian practical jokes. Structured around the different locations in our home and daily life - the kitchen, the bathroom, the office, and the grocery store. Award-nominated comic artist Andy Warner traces the often surprising and sometimes complex histories behind the items we often take for granted. Readers learn how: Velcro was invented by a Swiss engineer after he took his dog for a walk; the coffee filter was created by a German housewife; the Slinky was devised by a naval engineered while on board ship; and Monopoly was developed by a radical feminist as an anticapitalistic lesson. This is both a book of histories and a book about histories. It explores how whims beget realities, lies become legends, trade routes Spring up, and empires rise and fall - all from the perspective of your toothbrush or toilet.

ANDY WARNER's comics have been published by Slate, Medium, American Public Media, Symbolia, popsci.com, Showtime's Years of Living Dangerously, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the United Nations Refugee and Works Agency, Generation Progress, UNICEF, BuzzFeed, and Upworthy. He is the cofounder and coeditor of Irene. He writes and draws in a garden shed in San Francisco, and he lives in Berkeley and comes from the sea.