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The imagined empire : balloon enlightenments in revolutionary Europe / Mi Gyung Kim.
Author
Kim, Mi Gyung
[Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2016]
©2016
Description
xxv, 427 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm
Availability
Available Online
JSTOR DDA
Copies in the Library
Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
Engineering Library - Stacks
TL618 .K56 2016
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Details
Subject(s)
Hot air balloons
—
Social aspects
—
Europe
—
History
—
18th century
[Browse]
Ballooning
—
Social aspects
—
Europe
—
History
—
18th century
[Browse]
Revolutions
—
Europe
—
History
—
18th century
[Browse]
Enlightenment
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Rare books genre
Dust jackets (Binding)
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Summary note
"The hot-air balloon, invented by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783, launched for the second time just days before the Treaty of Paris would end the American Revolutionary War. The ascent in Paris--a technological marvel witnessed by a diverse crowd that included Benjamin Franklin--highlighted celebrations of French military victory against Britain and ignited a balloon mania that swept across Europe at the end of the Enlightenment. This popular frenzy for balloon experiments, which attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators, fundamentally altered the once elite audience for science by bringing aristocrats and commoners together. The Imagined Empire explores how this material artifact, the flying machine, not only expanded the public for science and spectacle but inspired utopian dreams of a republican monarchy that would obliterate social boundaries. The balloon, Mi Gyung Kim argues, was a people-machine, a cultural performance that unified and mobilized the people of France, who imagined an aerial empire that would bring glory to the French nation. This critical history of ballooning considers how a relatively simple mechanical gadget became an explosive cultural and political phenomenon on the eve of the French Revolution"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Prologue : Flying through time
Introduction : A people-machine
Part I : Invention in theatrical polity. A rupture of the equilibrium
Balloon transcripts
True Columbus
Part II : Philosophical nation. Balloon spectators
Fermentation and discipline
Provincial citizens and their nations
The fall of a national artifact
Part III : Material empire. Modern Atlantis
Crossing the channel
A liminal geography
Epilogue : Revolutionary metamorphoses.
Show 10 more Contents items
ISBN
9780822944652 ((hardback))
0822944650 ((hardback))
LCCN
2016054047
OCLC
951158235
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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The imagined empire : balloon enlightenments in revolutionary Europe / Mi Gyung Kim.
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