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A far reaching and weird delve into the world of rust, ranging from investigations of the rust belts in China and the US to the use of rust by artists and architects to strange ruminations on the connections between rust and blood.

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Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

It´s happening all the time, all around us. We cover it up. We ignore it. Rust takes on the many meanings of this oxidized substance, showing how technology bleeds into biology and ecology. Jean-Michel Rabate combines art, science, and autobiography to share his fascination with peeling paints and rusty metal sheets. Rust, he
concludes, is a place where things living, built, and remembered commingle.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

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Introduction
1. How to Live with Global Rust
2. Hegel and Ruskin, from the Inorganic to the Organic
3. Interlude: Blood-work
4. Rats and Jackals, Kafka after von Hofmannsthal
5. Aesthetics of Rust
Conclusion: Fougères to Marseilles: Green Rust or Edible Rouille?
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

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Rabate counters our instinctively negative view of rust with a surprisingly wide variety of examples drawn from philosophy as well as the arts and sciences for a strikingly and broadly convincing argument as to the merits of rust . Rabate presents rust as an imperfection with unlimited possibilities. He clarifies its role in our lives and complicates how we value its role. He brings readers his family rouille recipe and the news that someday soon, science may give us a green rust capable of cleaning our water and soil . He provides plenty of food for thought as we run into these references across daily life. PopMatters

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