The world as we know it today began in California in the late 1800s, and Eadweard Muybridge had a lot to do with it. This striking assertion is at the heart of Rebecca Solnit’s new book, which weaves together biography, history, and fascinating insights into art and technology to create a boldly original portrait of America on the threshold of modernity. The story of Muybridge—who in 1872 succeeded in capturing high-speed motion photographically—becomes a lens for a larger story about the acceleration and industrialization of everyday life. Solnit shows how the peculiar freedoms and opportunities of post–Civil War California led directly to the two industries—Hollywood and Silicon Valley—that have most powerfully defined contemporary society.
River of Shadows
The Annihilation of Time and Space
The Man with the Cloudy Skies
Lessons of the Golden Spike
Standing on the Brink
Lost River
A Day in the Life, Two Deaths, More Photographs
Skinning the City
Stopping Time
The Artist in Motion and at Rest
From the Center of the World to the Final Frontier
Chronology
Notes
Acknowledgments
Photograph Credits
Index
“One finds it hard to remember what things looked like before this book appeared in the world.” —The New York Times Book Review
“The imagery of a poet, the ideas of a theoretician, the rhythm of a thoroughbred and the force of a Southern Pacific locomotive.” —San Francisco Chronicle
