Wolfgang Schivelbusch tells the story of the development of artificial light in the nineteenth century. Not simply a history of a technology Disenchanted Night revelas the ways that the technology of artificial illumination helped forge modern consciousness. In his strikingly illustrated and lively narrative Schivelbusch discusses a range of subject including the political symbolism of streetlamps the rise of nightlife and the shopwindow and the importance of the salon in bourgeois culture.
Wolfgang Schivelbusch is a freelance writer who works in Berlin and New York. His prize-winning work The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century is also available from University of California Press.
"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
240 pp.5.375 x 8.5
9780520203549$30.95|Paper
Dec 1995