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

Alarms are alarming. They’re objects that wake us up and force us to turn our attention to things we’ve preferred to ignore. But alarms are also the objects that allow us to feel secure, to sleep, and to retreat from alertness. They take over vigilance on our behalf.

From the alarm clock and the air-raid siren to the doorbell and the phone alert, the history of alarms is also the history of work, security, technology, and emotion. Alarm responds to culture’s most urgent calls to attention by offering interpretations of all kinds of alarms, from restless presence of the alarm clock in modernist art to the siren - the sound of the police - in old-school hip hop. More than just bells and whistles, alarms are objects that have defined sleeping and waking, safety and danger, and have fundamentally shaped our understanding of the mind and its capacity for attention.

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