[Themaintainers] My Review of Stewart Brand's *Maintenance: Of Everything*, vol. 1.

[brandon benevento]

Thanks for this, Lee.

I think it begs the question: why haven't The Maintainers produced a
"maintenance of everything" type work? Something that leverages all that
love and aims to elevate and amplifie the work in this network. And has the
word "maintenance" in the title. Hint, hint...

On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 2:00 AM Lee Vinsel <lee.vinsel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, all.
>
> MIT Technology Review asked me to review Stewart Brand's new book,
> *Maintenance: Of Everything*, vol. 1
> <https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/17/1135408/book-review-stewart-brand-fixing-everything-maintenance/?utm_source=staff_social_outreach&utm_medium=tr_staff_social&utm_campaign=social&utm_content=guestbp>.
> Knowing Brand's earlier work well, I went into it with lots of questions,
> including about how Brand would treat labor, politics, and social
> structure. But the book was a lot worse than I expected. Beyond the foibles
> I anticipated, it just isn't very well put together. For example, it's
> loaded up with long block quotations and often feels like notes for a
> future work.
>
> I only briefly touch on my biggest disappointment in the review, though:
> Brand makes the empty and simply wrong claim that his book is the first
> account of maintenance we have. He could have used his massive platform for
> highlighting the work of junior, marginalized scholars who have been
> working on this topic for years now. To be clear, I'm not talking about me
> and Andy, who have gotten plenty of love for one lifetime. Over time, The
> Maintainers became more and more about the community, and there is a ton of
> great work in this network - a network Brand knows well - that could have
> been elevated and amplified. It's a shame.
>
> Otherwise, life is grand. I'm involved in a local community tool library
> here in Virginia's New River Valley and continue to work on maintenance and
> repair in other ways too. I hope to share about some of these things soon.
>
> And I hope you all are doing well, too.
>
> Lee
>
>
>
> --
> Associate Professor
> Department of Science, Technology, and Society
> Virginia Tech
> leevinsel.com
> @STS_News
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>


-- 
Brandon
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