Spectacular Flops

Game-Changing Technologies That Failed

By: Michael Brian Schiffer

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Paperback | 30 April 2019

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Paperback
300 Pages

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22.86 x 15.27 x 1.6

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Many technologies begin life as someone's vision of an ambitious, perhaps audacious, technology that is expected to have a revolutionary impact on consumers-whether families, companies, or societies. However, if this highly touted technology fails 'prematurely' at some point in its life history, it becomes a spectacular flop.

Employing a behavioral perspective, this book presents a sample of twelve spectacular flops encompassing the past three centuries-ranging from the world's first automobile to the nuclear-powered bomber. Because technologies may fail from many different causes, spectacular flops pose a special challenge to the author's long-term project of furnishing generalizations about technological change.

Instead of constructing generalizations that apply to all spectacular flops, this book provides limited generalizations that pertain to particular groups of technologies bounded by parameters such as 'long-term development projects' and 'one-off projects.' The reader need have no prior familiarity with the technologies because basic principles are introduced as needed.

Industry Reviews

"The reader of this work will no doubt greatly benefit from Schiffer's voluminous knowledge regarding electrical and mechanical devices. Through excellent illustrations and careful explanatory text, Schiffer succeeds in describing the intricacies of steam engines, jet turbines and nuclear power (in addition to other technologies). . . . Schiffer does an outstanding job explaining the technology to the layperson reader. Readers who enjoy learning about the history of technology initiatives will thoroughly enjoy Spectacular Flops". Howard Schneider, Business History Review, v95 n1 (2021)

". . . interesting stories, ideal for inserting into a class lecture, but also excellent examples of the many ways technologies fail. . . . Schiffer provides a very useful theoretical framework for exploring the lives of technologies both successful and unsuccessful." Jonathan Coopersmith, Technology and Culture

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