Description
Book SynopsisAlan Pred reconstructs the dramatic transformation of Stockholm's local economy, civil society and built environment between 1880 and 1900 through an interpretation of lost elements of language, or forgotten fragments of daily discourse, of lost words and meanings that belonged to members of the working and periodically employed classes.
Trade Review"...uniquely innovative in its materials and methodology." Choice
"The strength of Pred's method is its immersion in detail. His scholarship is impressive; his familiarity with Swedish sources should set a standard for other American social scientists working in Sweden. In the best parts of the book, the author marshalls his evidence to support colorful accounts of daily life for the working classes." Peter Stromberg, Ethnohistory
"...the distinctively empirical, playfully theoretical, and decidedly original work of Allan Pred deserves careful attention. In Lost Words and Lost Worlds: Everyday Life in Late Nineteenth-century Stockholm, Pred develops an apparently esoteric topic into a finely tuned theoretical argument, using lost linguistic expressions of old Stockholm as a discursive foil against which to set a very special reading of the worlds lost to modernity." Dierdre Boden, Contemporary Sociology
Table of ContentsList of plates; List of figures; Forewording and forewarning fragments; List of abbreviations; 1. Pretext(s): lost words as reflections of lost worlds; 2. A diversity of tongues: the practiced languages of Stockholm, 1880–1900; 3. Mundane mouthings about things, tasks, and tactics: lost wor(l)ds of production, distribution, and consumption; 4. Footing about the city, or getting around the streets and ideological domination: lost wor(l)ds of spatial orientation and popular geography; 5. Finger-pointing at the Other and speaking I to eye: lost wor(l)ds of social reference and address; 6. The world of the docks and the docker in the world; Last words on lost worlds; Notes; Index.
