The romantic machine [electronic resource] : utopian science and technology after Napoleon / John Tresch.
2012
T26.F8 T74 2012eb
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Title
The romantic machine [electronic resource] : utopian science and technology after Napoleon / John Tresch.
Author
Tresch, John, 1972-
ISBN
9780226812229 (electronic bk.)
0226812227 (electronic bk.)
9780226812205
0226812200
0226812227 (electronic bk.)
9780226812205
0226812200
Imprint
Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (xvii, 449 p.) : ill.
Other Standard Identifiers
9786613587060
Call Number
T26.F8 T74 2012eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
509.44/09034
Summary
"In the years immediately following Napoleon's defeat, French thinkers in all fields set their minds to the problem of how to recover from the long upheavals that had been set into motion by the French Revolution. Many challenged the Enlightenment's emphasis on mechanics and questioned the rising power of machines, seeking a return to the organic unity of an earlier age and triggering the artistic and philosophical movement of romanticism. Previous scholars have viewed romanticism and industrialization in opposition, but in this groundbreaking volume John Tresch reveals how thoroughly entwined science and the arts were in early nineteenth-century France and how they worked together to unite a fractured society. Focusing on a set of celebrated technologies, including steam engines, electromagnetic and geophysical instruments, early photography, and mass-scale printing, Tresch looks at how new conceptions of energy, instrumentality, and association fueled such diverse developments as fantastic literature, popular astronomy, grand opera, positivism, utopian socialism, and the Revolution of 1848. He shows that those who attempted to fuse organicism and mechanism in various ways, including Alexander von Humboldt and Auguste Comte, charted a road not taken that resonates today. Essential reading for historians of science, intellectual and cultural historians of Europe, and literary and art historians, The Romantic Machine is poised to profoundly alter our understanding of the scientific and cultural landscape of the early nineteenth century."--Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [377]-430) and index.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based upon print version of record.
Available in Other Form
Romantic machine.
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Table of Contents
Introduction: Mechanical romanticism
Devices of cosmic unity
Ampère's experiments: contours of a cosmic substance
Humboldt's instruments: even the tools will be free
Arago's daguerreotype: the labor theory of knowledge
Spectacles of creation and metamorphosis
The devil's opera: fantastic physiospiritualism
Monsters, machine-men, magicians: the automaton in the garden
Engineers of artificial paradises
Saint-Simonian engines: love and conversions
Leroux's pianotype: the organogenesis of humanity
Comte's calendar: from infinite universe to closed world
Conclusion: Afterlives of the romantic machine.
Devices of cosmic unity
Ampère's experiments: contours of a cosmic substance
Humboldt's instruments: even the tools will be free
Arago's daguerreotype: the labor theory of knowledge
Spectacles of creation and metamorphosis
The devil's opera: fantastic physiospiritualism
Monsters, machine-men, magicians: the automaton in the garden
Engineers of artificial paradises
Saint-Simonian engines: love and conversions
Leroux's pianotype: the organogenesis of humanity
Comte's calendar: from infinite universe to closed world
Conclusion: Afterlives of the romantic machine.