Networks of Modernity: Germany in the Age of the Telegraph, 1830-1880 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780198856887)

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Networks of Modernity: Germany in the Age of the Telegraph, 1830-1880 offers a fresh perspective on the history of Germany by investigating the origins and impact of the 'communications revolution' that transformed state and society during the nineteenth century. It focuses upon the period 1830-1880, exploring the interactions between the many different actors who developed, administered, and used one of the most important technologies of the period-the electric telegraph. It reveals the channels through which scientific and technical knowledge circulated across Central Europe during the 1830s and 1840s, stimulating both collaboration and confrontation between the scientists, technicians, businessmen, and bureaucrats involved in bringing the telegraph to life. It highlights the technology's impact upon the conduct of trade, finance, news distribution, and government in the tumultuous decades that witnessed the 1848 revolutions, the wars of unification, and the establishment of the Kaiserreich in 1871. Following the telegraph lines themselves, it weaves together the changes which took place at a local, regional, national, and eventually global level, revisiting the technology's impact upon concepts of space and time, and highlighting the importance of this period in laying the foundations for Germany's experience of a profoundly ambiguous, networked modernity.

Author: Jean-Michel Johnston
ISBN-10: 0198856881
ISBN-13: 9780198856887
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Language: English
Published: 07/07/2021
Pages: 296
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.36lbs
Size: 9.32h x 6.41w x 0.89d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 07/01/2022