Yet the site has a physical reality, which isn't even very far away. Shipwrecks can be incredibly rich archives of a particular moment, yet at the moment they remain fairly inaccessible. And the way we've used technology to see inside that strange world. In both cases, what interests me most is going back and forth between thinking about history and culture and how they change over time, and then thinking about technology and how people build machines. Let's segue to your book on the Monitor.
Heroism has to do with crafting individual stories out of a complex, collective world.
The sociology of military organizations is often built around the notion that it's possible to distinguish yourself in war, even if you happen to die. With the Monitor, the people were enclosed in the machine. Many never even saw the enemy. So their very notion of heroism in war was threatened, because it seemed they were merely turning cranks, polishing steam engines, or shoveling coal. On the other hand, the press and the public treated them like heroes.