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Loading... The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (1977)by Wolfgang Schivelbusch
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Essential reading for anyone even vaguely interested in any of the following: railroads, technology, communication, vision, travel, industrialization, time, the United States, Europe, or the nineteenth century. That should be just about everybody. This is one of the most fantastic books I've ever read, readable but scholarly (as so many books strive to be, but fall short on one end or the other). Schivelbusch examines railroads and their considerable impact on nineteenth-century life. Most interesting to me was his argument about perception and vision, which had to be restructured or rethought because of the different modes of viewing the RR required. It upsets me to think I'm the only LTer who owns this book. It completely confirmed to me my desire to be a historian, demonstrating beautifully how popular perceptions of time and space were transformed by the development of railway transport in the nineteenth century. It spans novels, mechanics, science and countless other domains. Highly recommended. no reviews | add a review
The impact of constant technological change upon our perception of the world is so pervasive as to have become a commonplace of modern society. But this was not always the case; as Wolfgang Schivelbusch points out in this fascinating study, our adaptation to technological change-the development of our modern, industrialized consciousness-was very much a learned behavior. In The Railway Journey, Schivelbusch examines the origins of this industrialized consciousness by exploring the reaction in the nineteenth century to the first dramatic avatar of technological change, the railroad. In a highly original and engaging fashion, Schivelbusch discusses the ways in which our perceptions of distance, time, autonomy, speed, and risk were altered by railway travel. As a history of the surprising ways in which technology and culture interact, this book covers a wide range of topics, including the changing perception of landscapes, the death of conversation while traveling, the problematic nature of the railway compartment, the space of glass architecture, the pathology of the railway journey, industrial fatigue and the history of shock, and the railroad and the city. Belonging to a distinguished European tradition of critical sociology best exemplified by the work of Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin, The Railway Journey is anchored in rich empirical data and full of striking insights about railway travel, the industrial revolution, and technological change. Now updated with a new preface, The Railway Journey is an invaluable resource for readers interested in nineteenth-century culture and technology and the prehistory of modern media and digitalization. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)385.09034Social sciences Commerce, Communications, Transportation Trains and Railroads Subdivisions History, geographic treatment, biographyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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"An der technischen Entwicklung der Dampfmaschine im 18. Jahrhundert läßt sich der Prozess der Emanzipation der modernen Produktionsweise von den Schranken der organischen Natur verfolgen."
Genau das wird auf 220 Seiten ausgeführt und sorgt bei Freunden der Eisenbahn (wie mir) oder auch der Industrialisierung für Begeisterungsstürme.
ps.: Bin über den Querverweis von Rebecca Solnits "Wanderlust" hier gelandet - quasi das Gegenstück zu diesem Buch, wenn wir über Flanieren sprechen. ( )