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The Crystal Palace was built in Hyde Park to house the treasures of the world for the Great Exhibition of 1851. It became a microcosm of Victorian life, industry and leisure, reflecting every aspect of its age. Designed by Joseph Paxton as a temporary structure its success meant that when it closed it was moved to Sydenham and rebuilt. "... widely regarded as the most authoritative book written about the history of the famous glass Crystal Palace ... " Kentish Times
The amusement parks which first appeared in England at the turn of the twentieth century represent a startlingly novel and complex phenomenon, combining fantasy architecture, new technology, ersatz danger, spectacle and consumption in a new mass experience. Though drawing on a diverse range of existing leisure practices, the particular entertainment formula they offered marked a radical departure in terms of visual, experiential and cultural meanings. The huge, socially mixed crowds that flocked to the new parks did so purely in the pursuit of pleasure, which the amusement parks commodified in exhilarating new guises. Between 1906 and 1939, nearly 40 major amusement parks operated across Bri...
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Examines the ways in which the idea of an earthly paradise inspired English life and thought in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
This book traces the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), who is rightly revered as one of the greatest of all engineers. His leading role in the transport revolution of the nineteenth century, and especially in the building of the Great Western Railway, left an indelible mark on the British landscape. His achievements captured the imagination of his contemporaries and subsequent generations, whilst his colossal energy and determination to carry out projects on the largest scale and to an extremely high standard set him apart from his rivals. Brunel tells the story both of the engineer, who followed his father Marc into what was then a new profession, and of the man. It explores his successes and failures, at home and abroad, including both the broad gauge GWR and the SS Great Eastern, as R. Angus Buchanan expertly brings out Brunel's imagination, drive and inventiveness. Above all, it sets him in the context of his times, showing both what made him who he was and how he made the most of the great opportunities offered to him.
Real and imagined undergrounds in the late nineteenth century viewed as offering a prophetic look at life in today's technology-dominated world. The underground has always played a prominent role in human imaginings, both as a place of refuge and as a source of fear. The late nineteenth century saw a new fascination with the underground as Western societies tried to cope with the pervasive changes of a new social and technological order. In Notes on the Underground, Rosalind Williams takes us inside that critical historical moment, giving equal coverage to actual and imaginary undergrounds. She looks at the real-life invasions of the underground that occurred as modern urban infrastructures ...
Isabel Allende--"la Famosa" to her fellow Chileans--is the world's most widely read Spanish language author. Her career coincides with the emergence of multiculturalism and global feminism, and her powerfully honest, revelatory works touch the pulse points of humankind. Her bravura study of the interwoven roles of women in family history opens the minds of outsiders to the sufferings of women and their children during years of social and political nightmare. This reference work provides an introduction to Allende's life as well as a guided overview of her body of work. Designed for the fan and scholar alike, this text features an alphabetized, fully-annotated listing of major terms in the Allende canon, including fictional characters, motifs, historical events and themes. A comprehensive index is included.
This book is the first in-depth study of occupational health in nineteenth and early-twentieth century Britain. As such it is an important contribution to the burgeoning literature on the history of health in the workplace. It focuses on the first four diseases to receive bureaucratic and legislative recognition: lead, arsenic and phosphorus poisoning and anthrax. As such it traces the emergence of medical knowledge and growth in public concern about the impact of these diseases in several major industries including pottery manufacture, matchmaking, wool-sorting and the multifarious trades in which arsenic was used as a raw material. It considers the process of state intervention taking due account of the influence of government inspectors, 'moral entrepreneurs' and various interest groups.