Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination [Paperback]

Rosalind Williams (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262731908 | ISBN-13: 978-0262731904 | Publication Date: April 11, 2008

With a new afterword by the author 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 of sewers and subways were laid, and at the simultaneous archaeological excavations that were unearthing both human history and the planet's deep past. She also examines the subterranean stories of Verne, Wells, Forster, Hugo, Bulwer-Lytton, and other writers who proposed alternative visions of the coming technological civilization. Williams argues that these imagined and real underground environments provide models of human life in a world dominated by human presence and offer a prophetic look at today's technology-dominated society. In a new afterword written for this edition, Williams points out that her book traces the emergence in the nineteenth century of what we would now call an environmental consciousness--an awareness that there will be consequences when humans live in a sealed, finite environment. Today we are more aware than ever of our limited biosphere and how vulnerable it is. Notes on the Underground, now even more than when it first appeared, offers a guide to the human, cultural, and technical consequences of what Williams calls "the human empire on earth."

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Notes on the Underground artfully demonstrates the triumph of the modern imagination, at once literary and technological, in exploring the least-explored sector of our habitat: the mysterious depths beneath its hard, seemingly impenetrable, surface. Leo Marx, Professor Emeritus, Professor Emeritus, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, MIT

Real and imagined undergrounds in the late nineteenth century viewed as offering a prophetic look at life in today's technology-dominated world.

"Notes on the Underground artfully demonstrates the triumph of the modern imagination, at once literary and technological, in exploring the least-explored sector of our habitat: the mysterious depths beneath its hard, seemingly impenetrable, surface."--Leo Marx, Professor Emeritus, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, MIT

(Leo Marx )

"How good to have a new edition of this classic book. Rosalind Williamsdescribes one of the great transformations of the human world, and hence thehuman psyche--a transition still underway, and still hidden in plain view."--Bill McKibben

(Bill McKibben )

"Rosalind Williams has brilliantly and eloquently explored the too oftenignored, but salient, concept of the underground in past and present."--Thomas Hughes, author of Human-Built World, and Professor Emeritus,University of Pennsylvania

(Thomas P. Hughes )

"How good to have a new edition of this classic book. Rosalind Williams describes one of the great transformations of the human world, and hence the human psyche a transition still underway, and still hidden in plain view." Bill McKibben

"One can only be delighted that Notes on the Underground is again available in print. Great books can only remain classics if they are reread by new generations of readers. It is now possible to put Williams's book alongside other classics such as Leo Marx's The Machine in the Garden or Raymond Williams's The City and the Country. Notes on the Underground deserves to be added to this prestigious list of studies that continue to inspire all those who defend a holistic yet not necessarily homogeneous view of analyzing science and culture." Jan Baetens Leonardo

Praise for the first edition: "'What are the consequences when human beings dwell in an environment that is predominantly built rather than given?' An uncommonly astute and provocative array of answers are examined through the metaphor of living underground, literally and in literature.... A spellbinder." J. Baldwin Whole Earth Review

Praise for the first edition: "Williams has written a book that is clear and enjoyable..... Notes on the Underground's moral imperative not only makes for fascinating criticism, but also encourages a rethinking of our ecological priorities." John Miller Artforum

About the Author

"Rosalind Williams has brilliantly and eloquently explored the too often ignored, but salient, concept of the underground in past and present." Thomas Hughes , author of Human-Built World, and Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (April 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262731908
• ISBN-13: 978-0262731904
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 8.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,378,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book - highly recommended, May 14, 2008

By 

Gary Burt (Blackpool, Lancs United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination (Paperback)

I tried to find a simple and concise description of what the book is about, but I cannot better Rosalind Williams own description at the start of Chapter One. "What are the consequences when human beings dwell in an environment that is predominantly built rather than given? This book seeks to answer that question. It explores the psychological, social and political implications of living in a technological world".

Rosalind Williams has delivered an insightful and extremely readable book. This book could easily have been a dry academic text that did little more than bring together a huge set of disconnected references from the last 150+ years. Instead of this, the author has contructed an engaging narrative that does justice to the extensive research and insightful analysis which flows through the book.

A must for anyone interested in technology and its impact of society and the individual.

3 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not at all what I thought it was., September 2, 2008

By 

Ethan J. Ensign "ReadRendezvousRama" (Salt Lake) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination (Paperback)

I was really excited after I read a review on boingboing.net. When it arrived I found out that the author thought that Notes on the Underground was an essay on her collections of early proto-science and science fiction/fantasy novels and books. I got a similar experience with pictures of book covers from reading the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction. I found her writing to be dry and far too interested in quoting from 19th cent. texts - something that could be easily done by using google-text. After all there are numerous modern essays on real artificial environments, and even examples: ISS, aircraft carriers, etc...
Why not call the book - notes on books that mention the "underground" which were collected by querying googletext. I expected more from an MIT professor.