Carroll Pursell, a prominent scholar in the history of technology since he coedited the two-volume compendium Technology and Western Civilization (1967) with the late Melvin Kranzberg, surveys in this lively and readable volume the trajectory of recreational technologies in Western culture from the nineteenth century to the present. Pursell looks at this evolution from several perspectives, including the gendered character of leisure, safety concerns, the role of hobbyists and sports enthusiasts and their markets, and a significantly understudied area of recreation history: the roles of liability and litigation risk.

Pursell also pays close attention to issues like patent protection and marketing strategies and is careful to place his examinations of recreational technology into economic context, including that of the Great Depression, when recreation, including movies, was one of very few U.S. growth industries.

While the book lapses occasionally into less-than-exciting invention and patent chronology, most of the examples offer plenty of food for thought and discussion. My personal favorite of Pursell's gendering-of-toys anecdotes in chapter 1 is the tale of the Toys “R” Us Nordic franchise “reforming the layout of its Stockholm store to eliminate the gender-specific display” (p. 24). In interviews with children, the marketers had heard complaints that “they couldn't get a sword for their Barbie, or a baby stroller for Spiderman” (p. 24).

My daughter, now an associate professor of computer science, solved as a child the first of these juvenile dilemmas by saving the sword-shaped toothpicks that skewered the maraschino cherries in her Shirley Temples. It is clear from many of Pursell's stories that a significant number of very successful toys and games, including Lego, Tinker Toys, and Erector sets, owe their firm grip on world markets to this kind of free-floating creativity in their young customers.

The discussion under the title of “Safe and Rational Playgrounds” in chapter 2, and that under “Extreme and (Sometimes) Impolite Sports” in chapter 6, raise historical questions about the allure of unsafe and/or forbidden forms of technological play. One of Pursell's epigraphs to chapter 2 is a 1944 quote from Johan Huizinga, to the effect that “Play to order is no longer play.” The discussion in chapter 6 of skateboards and skateboard parks includes the transgressive early character of some board sports and their eventual “taming”—from careering down public staircases on wheels into activities much less likely to generate lawsuits or hospitalizations (pp. 135–38). Pursell also notes the role of banning an activity as a spur to its increased popularity. His paradigmatic example is lava riding in the Hawaiian Islands, banned by missionaries in 1825, but other examples include the tango and other suggestive dance dialects, graffiti, and street racing, of both the equine and the automotive varieties (p. 140).

Recurring themes are the professionalization of recreation, a bias for technological nostalgia (think wooden surfboards and vinyl LP records) among amateurs and hobbyists worldwide, gigantism in amusement parks (think huge roller coasters), and the perennial attractions of being recreationally terrified by centrifugal forces, speed, and/or danger. The last of these, the pleasures of fear, create a tension between a market eager to experience them and the litigation risk associated with satisfying these cravings for sensation. While Pursell is to be commended for drawing this important connection between economics and law, I would be interested in reading a more detailed account of the role of strict liability in the Restatement of Torts (Second) in 1965, with its profound effect on the growth of the litigation industry in the United States.

In chapter 7, “Electronic Games,” Pursell points out that gaming and recreational experiences have played a significant role in the development of computer technology. He asserts that “it was estimated in 1983 that during the previous year, $200 million worth of software packages for home computers were sold in the United States, of which some $106 million went for ‘recreational products,’ that is, games” (p. 149). This kind of impetus to innovation suggests a parallel, which Pursell does not explicitly draw, with the role played by sexuality in computer science, explored in 1998 by Jonathan Coopersmith in his groundbreaking article “Pornography, Technology and Progress” (ICON [vol. 4, 1998]).

Reflecting Pursell's many years of teaching experience, the book offers a wealth of opportunities for spin-off research in the form of dissertations and even undergraduate research papers. Its good bibliography can get a young scholar started, and there are useful clues about where to look for primary sources. From Playgrounds to PlayStation would make a cost-effective textbook of ideal length for a course on technology and play or on the history of recreation. It's also a fun read for anyone interested in how markets, technology, and human pleasures have found new channels of confluence in the last two hundred years.