A History of Useless American Crap

Guest: Wendy Woloson, Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Camden, and author of “Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America“

We all have crap in our lives: free T-shirts, a snow globe collection, little knickknacks that we never quite manage to throw away. What's the allure of cheap, useless stuff? The dollar store has vestiges of childhood treasure hunts, and so many of us fall prey to the promise of a great deal. But there's something American about our willingness to "encrappify" our lives.

Global Garage Sale

Guest: Adam Minter, business journalist and author of “Junkyard Planet,” and “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale” 

The secondhand world is a global market and Minter follows the path of unwanted American stuff (and there is so much of it!) from garage sales to border crossings. In one instance, Minter discovered a technician in Ghana converting a 40-year-old tube television into a remote-control model.