Robert D. Friedel

Zips are so prevalent now, on clothing, luggage and a variety of other goods, that it's difficult to imagine doing without them. Although they are now cheap to make, they involve a surprising amount of advanced design and technology in their manufacture. As a child I remember being fascinated by how they worked, and never quite worked it out. I still haven't. This book is a detailed, popular history of how they came about. Reading it, one is left surprised that anyone ever managed to invent them at all.

This is a history of technology and of what it takes for technology to be adopted and become successful. It describes many attempts to make zips that basically just didn't work - and yet some of them were financially successful. What's also fascinating for the modern reader is that the original applications weren't ones that we see as key uses of the zip today (although zip purses are still a common use, overshoes certainly aren't for most of us.) The patent battles, company takeovers, sales techniques, advances in design and the popular perceptions of the zip through the years are all well described, and the book is also well-referenced. The book perhaps concentrates a little too much on the American perspective, although the rival European patent is discussed as are some of the early overseas licensing deals.

It's flawed in parts and at times it is dense reading, but overall this does a good job of achieving what it sets out to do. It's also excellent source reading for anyone generally interested in the general issues of adoption of technology in the consumer world.… (meer)

This book is not amazing, but it's a competent pop history of a technology. Yes, zippers are a technology, and the book reviews the predecessors and early development of the zipper somewhat thoroughly (although it does not go enough into the patents and other documentation). It then veers off into bits of company histories and how zippers were perceived in U.S. culture. The book (or maybe its sequel?) could have benefited from more examination of these later points, of further technological advances in the zipper, and possible a more international scope at the end.… (meer)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/arts/21conn.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=sl...
Connections
Tick-Tock and Other Pulses of the West
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
Published: May 21, 2007
Mr. Friedel surveys the kinds of inventions and technologies that developed in the West over centuries, compiling a roster of innovation that encompasses everything from textiles to time telling. Under his firm touch it begins to be possible to feel something like the primal pulse of this culture.… (meer)