In four appendices, the book also deals with the principles of environmental justice, the computer take-back campaign, sample shareholder resolutions, and the electronics recycler's pledge of true stewardship.

After Henry Ford began mass production, it took only a flash in time for these four-wheeled chunks of technology to wholly transform our landscape, environment, economy, culture, psychology, and ... well, pretty much our whole world.

Its editors say the book has "two geographical frames of reference"—the vicinity of San Jose, California (or, Silicon Valley), and "parts of the world increasingly integrated into global networks of electronics production, consumption, and disposal".

The volume looks at three "broad, integrative themes": the globalization of electronics manufacturing; labor rights and environmental justice; and the product end-of-life cycle issues (e-waste, and extended producer responsibility).

They argue that while the electronics industry leaders have produced "enormous technical innovation over the years", they have failed to keep "sufficient pace with the socially and environmentally oriented advances that are available to them."

Says an introduction to its contents: "Of the millions of words written over the past several decades about the electronics industry's incredible transformation of our world, far too few have been addressed (to) the downside of this revolution.

Fewer still realize that the amazingly powerful microprocessors and superminiaturized, high-capacity memory devices harm the workers who produce them and pollute the surrounding communities' air and water".

Nicholas Ashford calls the work "an impressive, comprehensive critique and hopeful, but realistic, blueprint for transforming the global electronics industry into a sustainable one encompassing technological advance, environmental improvement, and equitable, safe, and secure employment".