This book analyzes how new technologies transformed life and thought
between two periods, 1880-1920 and 1980-2020, with a focus on temporal
experiences of past, present, future and the spatial experiences of
form, distance, and direction. The signature contrast is between
experiences of time and space transformed by the telephone in the
earlier period and the Internet in the later period along with other
sharp contrasts: the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and the attack
on the World Trade Center on 9/11, World War I and the Gulf Wars,
gravity bombs and smart bombs, the pandemics of 1918 and 2020,
assembly lines and flexible production, Farmer’s Almanacs and
computer-based weather predictions, cash transactions and one-click
ordering, decolonization and globalization, internationalism and
planetarity. The book also makes three interpretive arguments: the
Epistemological Argument covers how greater knowledge introduced
uncertainties; the Ethical Argument tracks how new technologies
prompted ethical judgments about their value; and the Re-hierarchizing
Argument tracks the erosion of spatial hierarchies most notably in
religion, society, and politics with the increasing progress of
secularization, social mobility, and democratization. Time and Space
in the Internet Age is a thought-provoking study for academics and
general readers interested in the history of technology and science.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781040098400
Publisert
2024
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Taylor & Francis
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter