Download or read book Inventing the Victorians written by Matthew Sweet and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Suppose that everything we think we know about the Victorians is wrong." So begins Inventing the Victorians by Matthew Sweet, a compact and mind-bending whirlwind tour through the soul of the nineteenth century, and a round debunking of our assumptions about it. The Victorians have been victims of the "the enormous condescension of posterity," in the historian E. P. Thompson's phrase. Locked in the drawing room, theirs was an age when, supposedly, existence was stultifying, dank, and over-furnished, and when behavior conformed so rigorously to proprieties that the repressed results put Freud into business. We think we have the Victorians pegged--as self-righteous, imperialist, racist, materialist, hypocritical and, worst of all, earnest. Oh how wrong we are, argues Matthew Sweet in this highly entertaining, provocative, and illuminating look at our great, and great-great, grandparents. One hundred years after Queen Victoria's death, Sweet forces us to think again about her century, entombed in our minds by Dickens, the Elephant Man, Sweeney Todd, and by images of unfettered capitalism and grinding poverty. Sweet believes not only that we're wrong about the Victorians but profoundly indebted to them. In ways we have been slow to acknowledge, their age and our own remain closely intertwined. The Victorians invented the theme park, the shopping mall, the movies, the penny arcade, the roller coaster, the crime novel, and the sensational newspaper story. Sweet also argues that our twenty-first century smugness about how far we have evolved is misplaced. The Victorians were less racist than we are, less religious, less violent, and less intolerant. Far from being an outcast, Oscar Wilde was a fairly typical Victorian man; the love that dared not speak its name was declared itself fairly openly. In 1868 the first international cricket match was played between an English team and an Australian team composed entirely of aborigines. The Victorians loved sensation, novelty, scandal, weekend getaways, and the latest conveniences (by 1869, there were image-capable telegraphs; in 1873 a store had a machine that dispensed milk to after-hours' shoppers). Does all this sound familiar? As Sweet proves in this fascinating, eye-opening book, the reflection we find in the mirror of the nineteenth century is our own. We inhabit buildings built by the Victorians; some of us use their sewer system and ride on the railways they built. We dismiss them because they are the age against whom we have defined our own. In brilliant style, Inventing the Victorians shows how much we have been missing.
Download or read book Inventing the Israelite written by Maurice Samuels and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2009-12-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Maurice Samuels brings to light little known works of literature produced from 1830 to 1870 by the first generation of Jews born as French citizens. These writers, Samuels asserts, used fiction as a laboratory to experiment with new forms of Jewish identity relevant to the modern world. In their stories and novels, they responded to the stereotypical depictions of Jews in French culture while creatively adapting the forms and genres of the French literary tradition. They also offered innovative solutions to the central dilemmas of Jewish modernity in the French context—including how to reconcile their identities as Jews with the universalizing demands of the French revolutionary tradition. While their solutions ranged from complete assimilation to a modern brand of orthodoxy, these writers collectively illustrate the creativity of a community in the face of unprecedented upheaval.
Download or read book Inventing the 19th Century written by Stephen Van Dulken and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inventing the 19th Century chronicles a period of enormous technological change by examining the history of the 100 most important inventions of the 19th century. Using illustrations of the original patent drawings from the British Library's collections, Stephen van Dulken paints a vivid picture of the Victorian Age, highlighting inventions from the ground-breaking - such as aspirin, and the telephone - to the everyday - like denim jeans and tiddlywinks. An entertaining and informative volume for anyone interested in design technology and engineering.
Download or read book The Vikings and the Victorians written by Andrew Wawn and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2000 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Wawn draws together a wide range of source material, including novels, poems, lectures and periodicals, to give a comprehensive account of the construction and translation of the Viking age in 19th century Britain.
Download or read book Inventing the 19th Century written by Stephen van Dulken and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vivid picture of the Victorian Age unfolds as inventions from the ground-breaking - such as aspirin, dynamite, and the telephone - to the everyday - like blue jeans and tiddlywinks - are revealed decade by decade. Together they provide a vivid picture of Victorian life."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Portrait s Subject written by Sarah Blackwood and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Between the invention of photography in 1839 and the end of the nineteenth century, portraiture became one of the most popular and common art forms in the United States. ... images of human surfaces became understood as expressions of human depth during this era. Combining visual theory, literary close reading, and in-depth archival research, Blackwood examines portraiture's changing symbolic and aesthetic practices, from daguerreotype to X-ray. Considering painting, photography, illustration, and other visual forms alongside literary and cultural representations of portrait making and viewing, Blackwood argues that portraiture was a provocative art form used by writers, artists, and early psychologists to imagine selfhood as hidden, deep, and in need of revelation, ideas that were then taken up by the developing discipline of psychology"--
Download or read book Inventions That Didn t Change the World written by Julie Halls and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A captivating, humorous, and downright perplexing selection of nineteenth-century inventions as revealed through remarkable–and hitherto unseen–illustrations from the British National Archive Inventions that Didn’t Change the World is a fascinating visual tour through some of the most bizarre inventions registered with the British authorities in the nineteenth century. In an era when Britain was the workshop of the world, design protection (nowadays patenting) was all the rage, and the apparently lenient approval process meant that all manner of bizarre curiosities were painstakingly recorded, in beautiful color illustrations and well-penned explanatory text, alongside the genuinely great inventions of the period. Irreverent commentary contextualizes each submission as well as taking a humorous view on how each has stood the test of time. This book introduces such gems as a ventilating top hat; an artificial leech; a design for an aerial machine adapted for the arctic regions; an anti-explosive alarm whistle; a tennis racket with ball-picker; and a currant-cleaning machine. Here is everything the end user could possibly require for a problem he never knew he had. Organized by area of application—industry, clothing, transportation, medical, health and safety, the home, and leisure—Inventions that Didn’t Change the World reveals the concerns of a bygone era giddy with the possibilities of a newly industrialized world.
Download or read book Inventing the 20th Century written by Stephen van Dulken and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2002-05 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's the perfect gift book for every inventor and tinker in your life!"Remarkable . . . get the book for yourself. It'll hold you for many hours." (Wall Street Journal)"A fascinating compendium for trivia seekers." (Publishers Weekly)>"Highly entertaining . . . " (Boston Globe)
Download or read book Inventing the Electronic Century written by Alfred Dupont CHANDLER and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consumer electronics and computers redefined life and work in the twentieth century. In Inventing the Electronic Century, Pulitzer Prize-winning business historian Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., traces their origins and worldwide development. This masterful analysis is essential reading for every manager and student of technology.
Download or read book The Invention of Tradition written by Eric Hobsbawm and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-07-31 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores examples of this process of invention and addresses the complex interaction of past and present in a fascinating study of ritual and symbolism.
Download or read book Inventing the Great Awakening written by Frank Lambert and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a history of an astounding transatlantic phenomenon, a popular evangelical revival known in America as the first Great Awakening (1735-1745). Beginning in the mid-1730s, supporters and opponents of the revival commented on the extraordinary nature of what one observer called the "great ado," with its extemporaneous outdoor preaching, newspaper publicity, and rallies of up to 20,000 participants. Frank Lambert, biographer of Great Awakening leader George Whitefield, offers an overview of this important episode and proposes a new explanation of its origins. The Great Awakening, however dramatic, was nevertheless unnamed until after its occurrence, and its leaders created no doctrine nor organizational structure that would result in a historical record. That lack of documentation has allowed recent scholars to suggest that the movement was "invented" by nineteenth-century historians. Some specialists even think that it was wholly constructed by succeeding generations, who retroactively linked sporadic happenings to fabricate an alleged historic development. Challenging these interpretations, Lambert nevertheless demonstrates that the Great Awakening was invented--not by historians but by eighteenth-century evangelicals who were skillful and enthusiastic religious promoters. Reporting a dramatic meeting in one location in order to encourage gatherings in other places, these men used commercial strategies and newly popular print media to build a revival--one that they also believed to be an "extraordinary work of God." They saw a special meaning in contemporary events, looking for a transatlantic pattern of revival and finding a motive for spiritual rebirth in what they viewed as a moral decline in colonial America and abroad. By examining the texts that these preachers skillfully put together, Lambert shows how they told and retold their revival account to themselves, their followers, and their opponents. His inquiries depict revivals as cultural productions and yield fresh understandings of how believers "spread the word" with whatever technical and social methods seem the most effective.
Download or read book Inventing Luxembourg written by Pit Péporté and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The grand duchy of Luxembourg was created after the Napoleonic Wars, but at the time there was no 'nation' that identified with the emergent state. This book analyses how politicians, scholars and artists have initiated and contributed to nation-building processes in Luxembourg since the nineteenth century, processes that – as this book argues – are still ongoing. The focus rests on three types of representations of nationhood: a shared past, a common homeland and a national language. History was written so as to justify the country's political independence. Territorial borders shifted meaning, constantly repositioning the national community. The local dialect – initially considered German variant – was gradually transformed into the 'national language', Luxembourgish.
Download or read book Inventing America written by José Rabasa and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Inventing America, José Rabasa presents the view that Columbus's historic act was not a discovery, and still less an encounter. Rather, he considers it the beginning of a process of inventing a New World in the sixteenth century European consciousness. The notion of America as a European invention challenges the popular conception of the New World as a natural entity to be discovered or understood, however imperfectly. This book aims to debunk complacency with the historic, geographic, and cartographic rudiments underlying our present picture of the world.
Download or read book Inventing the Christmas Tree written by Bernd Brunner and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the roots of the Christmas tree tradition, tracing customs from the Middle Ages to the present day to reveal how it first became part of mainstream American culture and has since become popular worldwide.
Download or read book Edison written by Neil Baldwin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2001-04-28 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appointment.
Download or read book Inventing the Industrial Revolution written by Christine MacLeod and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-05-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the development of the English patent system and its relationship with technical change during the period between 1660 and 1800, when the patent system evolved from an instrument of royal patronage into one of commercial competition among the inventors and manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution. It analyses the legal and political framework within which patenting took place and gives an account of the motivations and fortunes of patentees, who obtained patents for a variety of purposes beyond the simple protection of an invention. It includes the first in-depth attempt to gauge the reliability of the patent statistics as a measure of inventive activity and technical change in the early part of the Industrial Revolution, and suggests that the distribution of patents is a better guide to the advance of capitalism than to the centres of inventive activity. It also queries the common assumption that the chief goal of inventors was to save labour, and examines contemporary criticism of the patent system in the light of the changing conceptualisation of invention among natural scientists and political economists.
Download or read book Inventing the Flat Earth written by Jeffrey B. Russell and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1997-01-30 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals the facts behind the deceiving myths that have been professed about Columbus and his time.
