Connected: How Trains, Genes, Pineapples, Piano Keys, and a Few Disasters Transformed Americans at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century - Softcover

Cassedy, Steven

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080479524X ISBN 13: 9780804795241

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2014

Synopsis

Between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, Americans underwent a dramatic transformation in self-conception: having formerly lived as individuals or members of small communities, they now found themselves living in networks, which arose out of scientific and technological innovations. There were transportation and communication networks. There was the network of the globalized marketplace, which brought into the American home exotic goods previously affordable to only a few. There was the network of standard time, which bound together all but the most rural Americans. There was the public health movement, which joined individuals to their fellow citizens by making everyone responsible for the health of everyone else. There were social networks that joined individuals to their fellows at the municipal, state, national, and global levels. Previous histories of this era focus on alienation and dislocation that new technologies caused. This book shows that American individuals in this era were more connected to their fellow citizens than ever―but by bonds that were distinctly modern.

About this title

About the Author

Steven Cassedy is Distinguished Professor of Literature and Associate Dean of the Graduate Division at University of California, San Diego.

Edition details

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080479524X
• ISBN 13: 9780804795241
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 344