The Innovation Delusion

Technology historians Lee Vinsel – a professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech – and Andrew L. Russell – a professor of history and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at SUNY Polytechnic Institute – founded The Maintainers, a movement that subverts the idea that innovation can solve the world’s problems. They argue for the primacy of maintenance over innovation and seek to correct economic imbalances that flow from excessive compensation for the latter. 

Publishers Weekly believes, “Readers will come away from [this] urgent and illuminating primer with a new perspective on the importance of maintenance as well as innovation…” Kirkus Reviews noted – in a starred review – that, “The authors … thoroughly expose the unjust hierarchy that leaves maintenance workers at the bottom of the pay scale.”