Inventing Modern (Paperback)

Lienhard

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Language: English

Published by Oxford University Press Inc, New York, 2005

0195189515 / 9780195189513

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Seller: CitiRetail, Stevenage, United KingdomCitiRetail

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Softcover

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Paperback. Modern is a word much used, but hard to pin down. In Inventing Modern, John H. Lienhard uses that word to capture the furious rush of newness in the first half of 20th-century America. An unexpected world emerges from under the more familiar Modern. Beyond the airplanes, radios, art deco, skyscrapers, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Buck Rogers, the culture of the open road--Burma Shave, Kerouac, and White Castles--lie driving forces that setthis account of Modern apart.One force, says Lienhard, was a new concept of boyhood--the risk-taking, hands-on savage inventor. Driven by an admiration of recklessness, America developed its technologicalempire with stunning speed. Bringing the airplane to fruition in so short a time, for example, were people such as Katherine Stinson, Lincoln Beachey, Amelia Earhart, and Charles Lindbergh. The rediscovery of mystery powerfully drove Modern as well. X-Rays, quantum mechanics, and relativity theory had followed electricity and radium. Here we read how, with reality seemingly altered, hope seemed limitless.Lienhard blends these forces with his childhood inthe brave new world. The result is perceptive, engaging, and filled with surprise. Whether he talks about Alexander Calder (an engineer whose sculptures were exercises in materials science) or that wacky paean to flight,Flying Down to Rio, unexpected detail emerges from every tile of this large mosaic.Inventing Modern is a personal book that displays, rather than defines, an age that ended before most of us were born. It is an engineer's homage to a time before the bomb and our terrible loss of confidence--a time that might yet rise again out of its own postmodern ashes. Explores the cultural history of the first half of the twentieth century, showing the impact of technological and scientific developments on the culture. In this book, the author elucidates, from a de facto postmodern perspective, what unique ideas and developments explain the profound watershed transition, around 1900 or 1906. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…

Seller Inventory # 9780195189513

Title
Inventing Modern (Paperback)
Author
Lienhard
Publisher
Oxford University Press Inc, New York
Publication year
2005
Condition
new
Binding
Paperback
Language
English
ISBN 10
0195189515
ISBN 13
9780195189513

CitiRetail

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