The Railway Journey: The Industrialization and Perception of Time and Space [Paperback]

Wolfgang Schivelbusch (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Because it made possible rapid movement and shipping across large distances, joining far-off towns to economic and cultural capitals, many people who lived in the early 19th century regarded the railroad as an instrument of progress. Because anyone with the price of a ticket could board a train, regardless of social class, the railroad was also seen as a democratizing technology.

But, Wolfgang Schivelbusch notes in this vivid history of early rail travel, the promise of progress and democracy was swiftly compromised. The railroads became an agency for the concentration of wealth in a few hands, and they created a class of passive consumers who simply got aboard and waited to arrive at their destinations. The railroads, Schivelbusch writes, changed the 19th-century world for good and ill. They helped rewrite the industrializing world's sense of time, for now precise schedules had to be kept; they reinforced a sense of forward-plunging movement into the future; they even introduced the reality of mass disaster, for railroads were always crashing, sometimes taking hundreds of riders to their deaths.

Delving into urban planning, psychology, architecture, and economics, as well as the history of technology, Schivelbusch paints a revealing portrait of the role of the railroad in shaping the 19th-century mind. --Gregory McNamee

Review

This delightful, probing, and very quirky book is, surprisingly, a pioneering work in the sociology and psychopathology of the railway revolution. . . Whats more, its a gas. -- The Village Voice

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: University of California Press (February 6, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520059298
• ISBN-13: 978-0520059290
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #327,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an excellent survey of the impact of railway travel, November 27, 1999

By 

J. Henderson (Clermont, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Railway Journey: The Industrialization and Perception of Time and Space (Paperback)

In the last few decades historians --following sociologists such as Durkheim-- have turned their attention to the ways in which new technologies have altered people's experience of space and time. Schivelbusch's small piece is a pretty good (but light-weight) example of this genre. He reveals some interesting trivia along the way: he tells, for example, how padded upolstery was invented to assuage the fears of first-class passengers brought about by the roughness of new speed; he shows that compartment design in passenger cars reflect the contrasting social values of Europe and America. But he is at his most interesting when describing the ways in which the railroad created new conceptual forms of geographical distance by obliterating the spaces in between destinations. Furthermore, by creating the need for standardized time-tables, railways nurtured a standardized/homogenized conception of time. Local idiocyncracies became less important. Doubtless true national identities could never have emerged without revolutions in transportation and communications. A book that takes these ideas much further is Stephen Kern's excellent work "The Culture of Time and Space." If this genre interests you, Kern's book is an important read.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb book that demonstrates how railroads and industrialization changed Western culture, September 15, 2005

By 

Sage Ross "Sage Ross" (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Railway Journey: The Industrialization and Perception of Time and Space (Paperback)

The Railway Journey is a straightforward but deceptively sophisticated work of social/cultural history that chronicles the rise of train travel and the effect this had on perceptions of space, time, travel, commerce, and ultimately 'modernity' (though the author avoids that loaded term). Schivelbusch draws mainly from primary sources and presents arguments about how significantly train travel affect the consciousness of 19th century travelers, and how the effects differed in America and Europe. The strength of the book lies in Schivelbusch's mastery of the details; the reader discovers exactly why British rails were straight while American rails curved around the landscape... the answers are rooted firmly in the economic differences between the two nations. And you learn about how the imprints of class structure differed for British and American train passengers, because British train cars evolved from stagecoaches while American train cars emulated river steamships.

The goal of so many histories of science and technology is to show the connections between the physical, technical world of scientists and engineers and the broader cultural world, and how the connections run both ways. Of course it is usually easy to show how science and technology change culture, but much harder to show profound influences of culture on science and technology. But Schivelbusch does just that, and does so with crisp writing and very clear evidence; his conclusions are often profound, yet it is very hard to take issue with the connections he makes.

Another reviewer recommends Kern's Culture of Time and Space over this book; while Kern takes a much broader view of the connections between culture and science, his work is so loosely constructed that it is hard to take his overreaching conclusions seriously. In particularly, Kern has a very thin understanding of the history of science (especially regarding the technical details), which frequently undermines his narrative. The Railway Journey is far more satisfying; it is a model of how cultural history of science can be done without ignoring the actual history of actual science.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating study of the cultural repercussions of new technologies, November 6, 2005

By 

John H. Teeple "Freelance social critic" (Sunnyvale, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Railway Journey: The Industrialization and Perception of Time and Space (Paperback)

Recently I've developed a taste for cultural histories that examine the influence of new technologies on the perception of nature, space, time, individuality (etc., etc.) The railroad is a prime example of a technology that, once adopted, profoundly altered how people perceived and interacted with their world. (And, in a very real sense, created a new world.) The railroad 'collapsed' space and time, opened up new lands to settlement (and new resources to exploitation), and inaugurated a new era of technologically-mediated experiences of nature.

Wolfgang Schivelbusch's book is not only a good, concise history of the railroad (focusing on England and the United States), but a pioneering study in the cultural impacts of new technologies. It's a bit old, and in places shows its age, but is an excellent place to start for readers who share my interest in the culture/technology interface. What is particularly valuable is the realization that many of the cultural shifts associated with 'postmodernity' today (particularly 'time-space compression') are in fact rooted in such eminently modernist achievements as the railroad and (contemporaneously) the telegraph.

Also valuable is Schivelbusch's discussion of resistance to the railroad. While early promoters had the idea of reorganizing transportation (of both goods and people) through a widespread adoption of rail, there were just as many - and just as vocal - dissenters. Opponents of this new technology were concerned that it would further isolate people from nature. The relentless motion of the train displaced the feelings of fatigue and physical exertion that come with long-distance travel; the speed of the train turned landscape into simply passing scenery. (In other words: the same arguments that people had and continue to have about the cultural impacts of the automobile were already taking place nearly 200 years ago!)

To continue a thread of discussion in these reviews, I suggest that a book like this (and Schivelbusch's other excellent work on technology: "Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century") be read alongside broader histories like Stephen Kern's "The Culture of Time and Space", and more focused studies of technology like David Landes' "Revolution in Time." The weakness and strength of Schivelbusch's study, when read along with these other works, is its conciseness. Schivelbusch does not delve very deeply into concurrent technologies; nor does he make broad generalizations or indulge in speculation (however warranted that may be). Instead he culls nuggets of insight from original sources and provides enough interpretation to whet the reader's appetite - perhaps for their own researches.

Well written, well argued, and a quick read.