Description
Book SynopsisFrom the candy bar to the cigarette, records to roller coasters, a technological revolution during the last quarter of the nineteenth century precipitated a colossal shift in human consumption and sensual experience. This book sheds new light on the origins of modern consumer culture and how technologies have transformed human sensory experience.
Trade Review"This book persuasively addresses one of the key questions in modern history: how human experience has been reshaped by mass marketing. It includes but goes beyond attention to advertising, to a fascinating exploration of technology's impact on products and packaging, and how the result has transformed sensory response. A groundbreaking effort." -Peter N. Stearns, author of The Industrial Revolution in World History
Table of Contents1. The Carrot and the Candy Bar 2. Containing Civilization, Preserving the Ephemeral, Going Tubular 3. The Cigarette Story 4. Superfoods and the Engineered Origins of the Modern Sweet Tooth 5. Portable Packets of Sound: The Birth of the Phonograph and Record 6. Packaging Sight: Projections, Snapshots, and Motion Pictures 7. Packaging Fantasy: The Amusement Park as Mechanized Circus, Electric Theater, and Commercialized Spectacle 8. Pleasure on Speed and the Calibrated Life: Fast Forwarding through the Last Century 9. Red Raspberries All the Time? Notes Index
