About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group

ISBN-100385536577

ISBN-139780385536578

eBay Product ID (ePID)168246046

Product Key Features

Book TitleCubed : a Secret History of the Workplace

Number of Pages368 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicIndustries / Service, Buildings / Public, Commercial & Industrial, Social History, Office Management, Office Equipment & Supplies, Workplace Culture

Publication Year2014

IllustratorYes

GenreArchitecture, Business & Economics, History

AuthorNikil Saval

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1.3 in

Item Weight24.9 Oz

Item Length9.5 in

Item Width6.4 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2013-037635

ReviewsPraise for Cubed : "...An entertaining read... Saval's readings of pop culture representations of the office and its workers add a lively and ironic perspective." --Publishers Weekly "Why did no one write this necessary book before now? Never mind: it wouldn't have been as good. Cubed has that combination of inevitability and surprise that marks the best writing--and thinking." --Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision "Required reading for anyone who works in an office, and for those fortunate enough to have escaped." --Ed Park, author of Personal Days "Nikil Saval is a superstar! He does for offices what Foucault did for prisons and hospitals, transforming a seemingly static, purely functional, self-evident institution into a rich human story, full of good and bad intentions, chance, and historical forces. Reading Cubed is like watching an amazing magic trick where the very boringness of the office turns out to be what is the most interesting. I found myself wishing he would do waiting rooms next." --Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed, Praise for Cubed : "Over the past week, as I''ve been carrying around a copy of Nikil Saval''s Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace , I''ve gotten some quizzical looks. ''It''s a history of the office,'' I''d explain, whereupon a good number of people would respond, ''Well, that sounds boring.'' It isn''t. In fact, Cubed is anything but... Saval''s book glides smoothly between his two primary subjects: the physical structure of offices and the social institutions of white-collar work over the past 150 years or so. Cubed encompasses everything from the rise of the skyscraper to the entrance of women in the workplace to the mid-20th-century angst over grey-flannel-suit conformity to the dorm-like ''fun'' workplaces of Silicon Valley. His stance is skeptical, a welcome approach given that most writings on the contemporary workplace are rife with dubious claims to revolutionary innovation - office design or management gimmicks that bestselling authors indiscriminately pounce on like magpies seizing glittering bits of trash." -Salon.com "Five days a week I commute to a skyscraper in the main business district of a large city and sit at a desk within whispering distance of another desk. Whatever the word ''work'' used to conjure, my version is now quite standard. About 40 million AMericans make a living in some sort of cubicle. Are we happy about that? The likelihood that we are not is central to Nikil Saval''s impressive debut, Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace ." - The New Republic "Nikil Saval''s new book, Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace ( Doubleday, April 22), is a fascinating guide to the intellectual history of the American office. Part cultural history, part architectural analysis and part management theory -- with some labor economics, gender studies and pop culture thrown in for good measure -- the book is a smart look at the evolution of the place where we spend so much of our lives." - The Washington Post "Lush, funny, and unexpectedly fascinating ... [G]enius ... Cubed stands as one of those books readers can open to any page and find the kind of insight they''ll want to yank strangers out of their bus or subway seats and repeat ... [A] beautifully written, original, and essential masterpiece." --Jerry Stahl, Bookforum "... Formidable ... Beautifully rendered ... Sections of the book shine--especially when it discusses gender in the workplace ... The elegance of his prose and the intensity of his moral commitment linger." -- The Nation "... An entertaining read ... Saval''s readings of pop culture representations of the office and its workers add a lively and ironic perspective." -- Publishers Weekly "Ferociously lucid and witty." -- Kirkus Reviews "A sprightly historical tour of the vexed, overplanned world of the modern workplace." --In These Times "Why did no one write this necessary book before now? Never mind: it wouldn''t have been as good. Cubed has that combination of inevitability and surprise that marks the best writing--and thinking." --Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision "Required reading for anyone who works in an office, and for those fortunate enough to have escaped." --Ed Park, author of Personal Days "Nikil Saval is a superstar! He does for offices what Foucault did for prisons and hospitals, transforming a seemingly static, purely functional, self-evident institution into a rich human story, full of good and bad intentions, chance, and historical forces. Reading Cubed is like watching an amazing magic trick where the very boringness of the office turns out to be what is the most interesting. I found myself wishing he would do waiting rooms next." --Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed, Praise for Cubed : "...An entertaining read... Saval's readings of pop culture representations of the office and its workers add a lively and ironic perspective." --Publishers Weekly "Ferociously lucid and witty." --Kirkus Reviews "Why did no one write this necessary book before now? Never mind: it wouldn't have been as good. Cubed has that combination of inevitability and surprise that marks the best writing--and thinking." --Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision "Required reading for anyone who works in an office, and for those fortunate enough to have escaped." --Ed Park, author of Personal Days "Nikil Saval is a superstar! He does for offices what Foucault did for prisons and hospitals, transforming a seemingly static, purely functional, self-evident institution into a rich human story, full of good and bad intentions, chance, and historical forces. Reading Cubed is like watching an amazing magic trick where the very boringness of the office turns out to be what is the most interesting. I found myself wishing he would do waiting rooms next." --Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed, Advance praise for Cubed : "Why did no one write this necessary book before now? Never mind: it wouldn't have been as good. Cubed has that combination of inevitability and surprise that marks the best writing--and thinking." --Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision "Required reading for anyone who works in an office, and for those fortunate enough to have escaped." --Ed Park, author of Personal Days "Nikil Saval is a superstar! He does for offices what Foucault did for prisons and hospitals, transforming a seemingly static, purely functional, self-evident institution into a rich human story, full of good and bad intentions, chance, and historical forces. Reading Cubed is like watching an amazing magic trick where the very boringness of the office turns out to be what is the most interesting. I found myself wishing he would do waiting rooms next." --Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed

Dewey Edition23

Dewey Decimal651.09

SynopsisYou mean this place we go to five days a week has a history ? Cubed reveals the unexplored yet surprising story of the places where most of the world's work--our work--gets done. From "Bartleby the Scrivener" to The Office , from the steno pool to the open-plan cubicle farm, Cubed is a fascinating, often funny, and sometimes disturbing anatomy of the white-collar world and how it came to be the way it is--and what it might become. In the mid-nineteenth century clerks worked in small, dank spaces called "counting-houses." These were all-male enclaves, where work was just paperwork. Most Americans considered clerks to be questionable dandies, who didn't do "real work." But the joke was on them: as the great historical shifts from agricultural to industrial economies took place, and then from industrial to information economies, the organization of the workplace evolved along with them--and the clerks took over. Offices became rationalized, designed for both greater efficiency in the accomplishments of clerical work and the enhancement of worker productivity. Women entered the office by the millions, and revolutionized the social world from within. Skyscrapers filled with office space came to tower over cities everywhere. Cubed opens our eyes to what is a truly "secret history" of changes so obvious and ubiquitous that we've hardly noticed them. From the wood-paneled executive suite to the advent of the cubicles where 60% of Americans now work (and 93% of them dislike it) to a not-too-distant future where we might work anywhere at any time (and perhaps all the time), Cubed excavates from popular books, movies, comic strips ( Dilbert ), and a vast amount of management literature and business history, the reasons why our workplaces are the way they are--and how they might be better., You mean this place we go to five days a week has a history ? Cubed reveals the unexplored yet surprising story of the places where most of the world's work--our work--gets done. From "Bartleby the Scrivener" to The Office , from the steno pool to the open-plan cubicle farm, Cubed is a fascinating, often funny, and sometimes disturbing anatomy of the white-collar world and how it came to be the way it is--and what it might become. In the mid-nineteenth century clerks worked in small, dank spaces called "counting-houses." These were all-male enclaves, where work was just paperwork. Most Americans considered clerks to be questionable dandies, who didn't do "real work." But the joke was on them: as the great historical shifts from agricultural to industrial economies took place, and then from industrial to information economies, the organization of the workplace evolved along with them--and the clerks took over. Offices became rationalized, designed for both greater efficiency in the accomplishments of clerical work and the enhancement of worker productivity. Women entered the office by the millions, and revolutionized the social world from within. Skyscrapers filled with office space came to tower over cities everywhere. Cubed opens our eyes to what is a truly "secret history" of changes so obvious and ubiquitous that we've hardly noticed them. From the wood-paneled executive suite to the advent of the cubicles where 60% of Americans now work (and 93% of them dislike it) to a not-too-distant future where we might work anywhere at any time (and perhaps all the time), Cubed excavates from popular books, movies, comic strips ( Dilbert! ), and a vast amount of management literature and business history, the reasons why our workplaces are the way they are--and how they might be better.

LC Classification NumberHF5547.S336 2014

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Cubed : A Secret History of the Workplace by Nikil Saval (2014, Hardcover)

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