Narratives and Spaces

by David E. Nye

Nye analyzes the transformation of the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls into tourist sites, the history of light shows at world's fairs, the New Deal programs designed to provide electricity to rural areas, and the Apollo 11 moon to reveal how the spaces we live in and the technology we use are integral to American identity , and a key part of American self-representation. Nye also turns his attention to the Internet, where technology has not simply transformed space, but created a whole new kind of space, and with it, new stories.
Nye analyzes the transformation of the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls into tourist sites, the history of light shows at world's fairs, the New Deal programs designed to provide electricity to rural areas, the Apollo 11 moon landing, and the new narratives of the Internet to reveal how the spaces we live in and the technology we use are integral to American identity, and a key part of American self-representation. In examining the interaction of technology, space, and American narrative, Nye argues against the idea that technology is an inevitable and insidious controller of our lives.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

David E. Nye is Professor of American History at the University of Southern Denmark. The winner of the 2005 Leonardo da Vinci Medal of the Society for the History of Technology, he is the author of Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric, 1890-1930 (1985), Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940 (1990), American Technological Sublime (1994), Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies (1997), America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings (2003), and Technology Matters: Questions to Live With (2006) published by the MIT Press.

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Velgjort og velskrevet, men flere af kapitlerne var nok lidt uden for min interessesfære.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the themes and construction of the book were sound, and the facts supported Nye's theories, the second half of the book read as a series of statistics instead of an argument. The second chapter relied so heavily on one book that if you had not read that book it became dull quickly. Nye's self-referential conversation on the Historian's Problem also got old... but I found the construction of the American Landscape and the narrative of electricity in our society to be fascinating.