Deeply researched, World as Laboratory tells a secret history that's not really a secret. The fruits of human engineering are all around us: advertising, polls, focus groups, the ubiquitous habit of "spin" practiced by marketers and politicians. What Rebecca Lemov cleverly traces for the first time is how the absurd, the practical, and the dangerous experiments of the human engineers of the first half of the twentieth century left their laboratories to become our day-to-day reality.
"Delves into both the grotesque and the comical experiments that built the modern world . . . With a healthy sense of amusement and an appreciation for the absurd, Lemov recounts the attempts of the now largely defunct fields of behaviorism and behavioral engineering to quantify, predict and ultimately control human behavior . . . the book handles tough subjects in a deft and even charming manner."
Seed Magazine
"Rebecca Lemov, a lecturer at the University of Washington, has produced a lively and well-researched history of the human engineering field and its broad intellectual and social legacy."
Michael O'Donnell, The San Francisco Chronicle
"An often enthralling history of the young science of human behavior and society."
