Description
Book SynopsisTraces the complex relationship between Americans, technology, and their environment as it has unfolded over the past several centuries.
Virtual America identifies the connections (or lack thereof) between our individual selves, an American identity, and the geography “out there.”
Trade Review"This is the book for any intelligent, concerned, sensitive person who might be given to weeping over the screech of a chain saw when a neighbor fells a tree or depression as developers extend yet another strip mall into the countryside. It has the power to change one's life."—P. D. Travis,
Choice Magazine
"In persuasively linking the modern digital technologies of imagined reality to their historical antecedents, Opie has produced an important book and a new framework for understanding the story, one that is all the more relevant the more virtual our reality becomes."—Gregory Summers,
Annals of Iowa"Opie's book will help us maintain genuine connectivity in the cyber era."—Brian Black,
Technology and Culture"This book can usefully guide students to think about how Americans have continually reconstructed their sense of place as they searched for an often problematic authenticity." —David E. Nye,
American Studies JournalTable of ContentsIntroduction
1. Welcome to VirtuaLand: Old Dreamworlds and the Power of a New Modernity
2. Antique America: Searching for Authenticity
3. Human Kodaks in the Future Perfect: Virtual America Embodied in World’s Fairs
4. Sleepwalking in America: A Brief History
5. Finding Authenticity: Inhabiting Place in America
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