Maintenance: Of Everything

The first in-depth exploration of maintenanceand a powerful argument for its civilizational importancefrom the author of How Buildings Learn and creator of the Whole Earth Catalog. Maintenance is what keeps everything going. Its what keeps life going. Yet its also easy to shirk or deferuntil the thing breaks, the system falters, and everything stops. The apparent paradox is profound: Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional. The first in a multi-volume work, Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One offers a comprehensive overview of the civilizational importance of maintenance. The book begins with a dramatic contest of maintenance styles under life-critical conditions: the Golden Globe around-the-world solo sailboat race of 1968. It goes on to explore the insights that can be gleaned from vehicle maintenance, from the zeal of motorcycle maintainers to the maintenance philosophies that fought for dominance of the auto industry to the state of electric vehicle manufacturing today, with absorbing detours into the evolution of precision in manufacturing, the enduring importance of manuals, sustainment in the military, and the never-ending battle against corrosion. Maintenance: Of Everything is a wide-ranging and provocative call to expand what we mean by maintenancenot just the tiresome preventative tasks but the whole grand process of keeping a thing going. It invites us to understand not only the profound impact maintenance has on our daily lives but also why taking responsibility for maintaining somethingwhether a motorcycle, a monument, or our very planetcan be a radical act.