Object Lessons is a series of short beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of
ordinary things. Barcodes are about as ordinary as an object can be. Billions of them are
scanned each day and they impact everything from how we shop to how we travel to how the global
economy is managed. But few people likely give them more than a second thought. In a way the
barcode's ordinariness is the ultimate symbol of its success. However behind the mundanity of
the barcode lies an important history. Barcodes bridged the gap between physical objects and
digital databases and paved the way for the contemporary Internet of Things the idea to
connect all devices to the web. They were highly controversial at points protested by consumer
groups and labor unions and used as a symbol of dystopian capitalism and surveillance in
science fiction and art installations. This book tells the story of the barcode's complicated
history and examines how an object so crucial to so many parts of our lives became more ignored
and more ordinary as it spread throughout the world. Object Lessons is published in partnership
with an essay series in The Atlantic.
