Herbert Sussman – författare

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.

This book provides an intriguing look at the long history of the changing definitions of what it means to "be a man," identifying both the continuity and disparity in these ideals and explaining the contemporary crisis of masculinity.In the classical Athens of Plato and Pericles, erotic relations between adolescents and adult men—what we now revile as pedophilia—was the marker of manliness; a clear example of how concepts of masculinity shift. Even within modern western society, there are conflicting ideals for men; they are expected to be both aggressive and unemotional in business, and sensitive and caring as a father and lover.Masculine Identities: The History and Meanings of Manliness provides a comprehensive consideration of what "being a man" has meant over time. A fascinating read for men and women alike, it examines masculine identities that emerged in the past and continue into the present, such as the warrior, the democratic man, the craftsman, the self-made man of business, as well as ethnic forms of manliness. The work concludes by examining the contemporary issues of male sexuality, same-sex identity, and the conflicts within men in the modern world.