The Railway Journey
Subtitle: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century, With a New Preface
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Oakland, California
Language: eng
Translated from: ger
Translation of: Geschichte der Eisenbahnreise
Format: Print book
Number of pages: 203
ISBN-13: 9780520282261
Description: The impact of constant technological change upon our perception of the world is so pervasive as to have become a commonplace of modern society. But this was not always the case; as Wolfgang Schivelbusch points out in this fascinating study, our adaptation to technological change—the development of our modern, industrialized consciousness—was very much a learned behavior. In *The Railway Journey*, Schivelbusch examines the origins of this industrialized consciousness by exploring the reaction in the nineteenth century to the first dramatic avatar of technological change, the railroad.

In a highly original and engaging fashion, Schivelbusch discusses the ways in which our perceptions of distance, time, autonomy, speed, and risk were altered by railway travel. As a history of the surprising ways in which technology and culture interact, this book covers a wide range of topics, including the changing perception of landscapes, the death of conversation while traveling, the problematic nature of the railway compartment, the space of glass architecture, the pathology of the railway journey, industrial fatigue and the history of shock, and the railroad and the city.

Belonging to a distinguished European tradition of critical sociology best exemplified by the work of Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin, *The Railway Journey* is anchored in rich empirical data and full of striking insights about railway travel, the industrial revolution, and technological change. Now updated with a new preface, *The Railway Journey* is an invaluable resource for readers interested in nineteenth-century culture and technology and the prehistory of modern media and digitalization.
Notes: 16 pages de planche : illustrations.
Index: pages 201-203.