Reminding us that all media were once new, this book challenges the notion that tostudy new media is to study exclusively today's new media. Examining a variety of media in theirhistoric contexts, it explores those moments of transition when new media were not yet fully definedand their significance was still in flux. Examples range from familiar devices such as the telephoneand phonograph to unfamiliar curiosities such as the physiognotrace and the zograscope. Movingbeyond the story of technological innovation, the book considers emergent media as sites of ongoingcultural exchange. It considers how habits and structures of communication can frame a collectivesense of public and private and how they inform our apprehensions of the "real." By recoveringdifferent (and past) senses of media in transition, New Media, 1740-1915 promises to deepen ourhistorical understanding of all media and thus to sharpen our critical awareness of how they acquiretheir meaning and power.
Lisa Gitelman is associate professor in the Departments of English and of Media, Culture, and Communication, at New York University. She is the coeditor (with Geoffrey B. Pingree) of New Media, 1740-1915 (MIT Press, 2003) and the author of Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines.