Victorian Technology: Invention, Innovation, and the Rise of the Machine

An enlightening history of 19th-century technology, focusing on the connections between invention and cultural values.

Victorian Technology: Invention, Innovation, and the Rise of the Machine captures the extraordinary surge of energy and invention that catapulted 19th-century England into the position of the world's first industrialized nation. It was an astonishing transformation, one that shaped--and was shaped by--the values of the Victorian era, and that laid the groundwork for the consumer-based society in which we currently live.

Filled with vivid details and fascinating insights into the impact of the Industrial Revolution on peoples' lives, Victorian Technology locates the forerunners of the defining technologies of the our time in 19th-century England: the computer, the Internet, mass transit, and mass communication. Readers will encounter the innovative thinkers and entrepreneurs behind history-making breakthroughs in communications (the transatlantic cable, wireless communication), mass production (the integrated factory), transportation (railroads, gliders, automobiles), and more.

Author: Herbert Sussman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: 07/01/2009
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.20w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780275991692

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2010
Scitech Book News 09/01/2009 pg. 125

About the Author

Herbert Sussman is professor emeritus of English at Northeastern University, Boston, MA, and is currently an adjunct faculty member at The New School, New York, NY.