A New Industrial Future? 3D Printing and the Reconfiguring of Production, Distribution, and Consumption

3D printing has become emblematic for deep-seated, ambivalent, and strange changes in our societies. Increasingly accessible, and increasingly powerful, it is unclear whose digital fabrications will be served by this potentially ubiquitous technology. Will it be manufacturers, hackers, makers, the military, peer-producers, or entirely new social figures? And what about relations between capital, labour, consumption and environment? Birtchnell and Urry provide a clear-sighted and measured analysis into these issues. Drawing upon the historical, geographic and social relations shaping the development of this technology, their book navigates some of the futures open to us, and makes clear the social choices involved right now. - Adrian Smith, Professor of Technology & Society, University of Sussex, UK