The American West - where such landmarks as the Golden Gate Bridge rival wild landscapes in popularity and iconic significance - has been viewed as a frontier of technological innovation. Where Minds and Matters Meet calls attention to the convergence of Western history and the history of technology, showing that the region's politics and culture have shaped seemingly placeless, global technological practices and institutions. Drawing on political and social history as well as art history, the book's essays take the cultural measure of the region's great technological milestones, including San Diego's Panama-California Exposition, the building of the Hetch Hetchy Dam in the Sierras, and traffic planning in Los Angeles. Contributors: Amy Bix, Louise Nelson Dyble, Patrick McCray, Linda Nash, Peter Neushul, Matthew W Roth, Bruce Sinclair, L Chase Smith, Carlene Stephens, Aristotle Tympas, Jason Weems, Peter Westwick, and, Stephanie Young.

Not Exactly Stealin', the first in the series, is a dark comedy about ancestor worship, rare Southern antiquities, and good old-fashioned greed. It focuses on a 130-year-old diary of a black freedwoman, and features five female characters: Dale Ralston, one-time set designer for the New York fashion industry now married to a corrupt state politician; Rannie Ralston, Dale's sister-in-law, a hard-charging lawyer; Moira, Dale's other sister-in-law, a dreamy, overgrown child who lives in the haze of history; Mary Canty Ralston, Dale's mother-in-law, an avaricious lush; and, Tamzie, their maid who observes, records, and becomes dangerously tangled in theft and murder. These novels describe Charleston before it became totally infested by rich Yankees. Large shabby pockets remained ungentrified-old families lived in old houses and maintained old rituals.

After learning of a large inheritance, Todd moves his wife, small child, and adolescent stepdaughter, Alice, from their cramped SOHO apartment to the wisteria-draped Georgian town of Congreve. The heir to a small-town banking fortune, Todd knows all too well the dangerous snare of greed, but the promise of the good life is too much for the struggling artist to resist. However, when the pressures of an industry he doesn't understand become too much for him to bear, he finds comfort in liquid escape. Barely thirteen, Alice does her best to understand the dark flashes of violence creeping into her new life. She tries to ignore her new Aunt who only has eyes for younger half sister, and keeps a watchful eye on her troubled cousin, but the dark secret hidden behind the gabbled upstairs window of the Broderick mansion is about to set fire to her once-fairytale existence. In Athena Alexis' southern gothic tale of greed, incest, and murder, money may be the root of all evil, but truth is the greatest sin of all.

Race and technology are two of the most powerful motifs in American history, but until recently they have not often been considered in relation to each other. This collection of essays examines the intersection of the two in a variety of social and technological contexts, pointing out, as the subtitle (borrowed from Brooke Hindle's classic 1966 work Early American Technology) puts it, the "needs and opportunities for study."The essays challenge what editor Bruce Sinclair calls the "myth of black disingenuity" -- the historical perception that black people were technically incompetent. Enslaved Africans actually brought with them the techniques of rice cultivation that proved so profitable to their white owners, and antebellum iron working in the South depended heavily on blacks' craft skills. The essays document the realities of black technical creativity -- in catalogs of patented inventiveness, in the use of "invisible technologies" such as sea chanteys, and in the mastery of complex new technologies. But the book also explores the economic and social functions of the disingenuity myth, and therefore its persistence. African-Americans often saw in new technologies a means to escape racial prejudice, but white Americans used them just as often to re-frame the boundaries of social behavior. The essays show that technologies and racialized thought are much more tightly connected than we have imagined.

A timely, essential guide to understanding and monetizing the Internet of Things in any industry What is the Internet of Things? The latest evolution in online technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) is the integration of physical devices such as wearables, consumer appliances, commercial equipment, industrial machines and even cities into the internet-is not only changing the way people live but how business is conducted. The growing demand for more sophisticated products has led leading businesses to IoT enabling the shift from a product- and service-based economy to an outcome-based economy. IoT, Inc. addresses this business revolution and provides expert advice on how to develop a business plan to effectively monetize the IoT in virtually any industry. Written by a recognized industry leader, this book cuts through the hype and clearly explains the technology and business applications of the IoT. This important resource: * Explains how the IoT is radically changing the way businesses make and sell products * Offers valuable insights into IoT from a pioneer in the field * Shows you how to implement and monetize an IoT strategy in any industry * Based on first-hand experience and interviews with over 100 business leaders on how they incorporate IoT into their business strategies