Henry Petroski's 'The Pencil — The History of an Everyday Object' appeared in German translation in 1995 from Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, as a hardcover with about 408 pages and numerous illustrations (ISBN 3-7643-5047-4). Originally packed, shrink-wrapped copies additionally contain a Faber-Castell 9000 pencil. Petroski competently tells the history of the pencil starting in the time before its invention, describes the rise of new technologies, closely guarded trade secrets, improvements and well-known pencil families of the old and new world, and depicts a 'pencil world war' between entire industries. The to this day unfinished search for technical perfection is also a topic.
Cultural, technical and economic aspects interlock here. Drawing on old company records, Petroski quotes discussions of an Atlanta firm in the early 1920s on how wage structures were to be designed for the mass production of mechanical pencils — in a language that mirrors the social image of that time in an oppressive way. In the appendix is a contribution by Norbert Franzke and Peter Schafhauser on the pencil dynasty Faber-Castell.