Inventing Modern: Growing Up with X-Rays, Skycrapers, and Tailfins

by John H. Lienhard

Book Overview

Modern is a word much used, but hard to pin down. In Inventing Modern, John H. Lienhard uses that word to capture the furious rush of newness in the first half of 20th-century America. An unexpected world emerges from under the more familiar Modern. Beyond the airplanes, radios, art deco, skyscrapers, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Buck Rogers, the culture of the open road--Burma Shave, Kerouac, and White Castles--lie driving forces that set this account...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195160320
• ISBN13: 9780195160321
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 9.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Good Overall View

Lienhard's book is a personal account of the age of Modern, a term he defines as more a state of mind than an actual event or time. The operative word is personal. It is difficult to fully interpret biographical events as part of the epoch-changing phenomenon he calls "Modern". "Modern", which began in the 19th century, affected not only the physical world but how we viewed that world. The author opines as to how an object or idea is either pre, post or actually modern. The range - from architecture to art to war to electricity and inventions - cover the gambit. Lienhard believes "Modern" denotes a societal mindset, one we no longer possess. He is absolutely correct. Our society is awash in waves of data that can be neither integrated nor understood. Our spirit (for lack of a better word) is unlike the Modern pioneers. We've lost our innocence, our belief that technology will better our lives. Nor do we seek knowledge for its own sake. This is illustrated by popular myths: The environment is degrading, the economy is collapsing, chemicals are lethal, life is drugery, etc. The facts are, the UN again rated the US #1 for clean water and safe food, we are richer than ever, we have unprecedented free time and access to virtually any entertainment, news or information at our fingertips. In this post-modern age, the cry is for something different. The author IS correct that "Modern" stopped in the 1950's. We define "modern architecture" as Frank Lloyd Wright, "modern art" as Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko, "modern cars" as snazzy Vets. Yet biotechnology, space travel and new inventions may usher in a new age he calls "Expanded". Recommended for serious readers.

Artifice Vs. Artifact

This is modern archaeology at its best. John Lienhard writes a thoughtful, moving book encircling our history through the eyes of an engineer. Inventing Modern traces the watershed inventions of the twentieth century, cataloguing their importance in the arc of our civilization. Without invention, the author argues, there are no artifacts of history. Taking a scientist's erudite perspective and infusing it with a healthy dose of playfulness and an artless sense of history, Lienhard tells us what it is to be American, modern, nuclear, analog, and even digital. Lienhard sees invention with a sense of irony, tragedy and pure joy. "Inventing" is not a dialectic dismantling of our Dionysian times but rather a surprising and hopeful and even dreamy look at the (recent past and) future of civilization from the perspective of a crafty engineer unafraid to stare down that elusive American improvisational spirit. You can read Arthur C.Clarke for fantasies of an alter-universe, but to get down to the nuts and bolts of the history and the scholarly soul of the space elevator project (for example) currently in its planning stages off the coast of the Pacific, read Lienhard. His is a most eloquent telling- an optimistic, un-patronizing work with a very strong vision of mankind's makings.