Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century

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University of California Press, Dec 20, 1995 - History - 227 pages
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.
 

Contents

The Lamp
1
Fire and Flame
4
The Modernisation of the Wick
8
Gaslight
8
Electrical Apotheosis
30
The Street
57
A Flood of Light
92
Flight Life
113
Shop Windows
121
The Drawingroom
133
The Stage
167
The Darkening of the Auditorium
181
Select Bibliography
201
Index
203
Copyright

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About the author (1995)

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.

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