Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century - Hardcover

Schivelbusch, Wolfgang

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520059034 ISBN 13: 9780520059030

Publisher: University of California Press, 1988

Synopsis

Examines the interplay between new and revolutionary technology and nineteenth-century imagination

About this title

Review

The story of the development of artificial light in the 19th century is not only a history of its technology but a revelation of how that technology helped forge modern consciousness. The range of subjects includes the political symbolism of streetlamps, the rise of nightlife and the shop window, and the importance of the salon in the bourgeois culture. Very Highly Recommended.

From the Inside Flap

"Entertaining. . . . [Schivelbusch] provides ground for much speculation--about the deregulation of utilities, the role of lighting in crim control, the growing attraction of self-sufficient rural life and hte social function of the theater. That is no mean feat for 227 pages."--Brenda Maddox, New York Times Book Review "A readable, highly personal, often original, and deliberately provocative attempt to integrate the story of artificial lisght with the history of modern life."--Neil Harris, Science "A solid introduction to major technological transformations in 19th-century lighting and their social, psychological, and cultural contexts."--John Opie, Technology and Culture "A marvelous nugget of history and economics."--Newsday

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520059034
• ISBN 13: 9780520059030
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 227