The Cultural History Reader is the first volume to collect together the distinctive contributions made by cultural historians across the spectrum of historiographical methods. It offers a unique view into the insights to be gained from examining how cultural factors have shaped people's experiences of the world and guided their actions.

Featuring eleven thematic sections, covering everything from childhood to technology and war to popular culture, this book bridges disparate themes, periods, nationalities and religions to present detailed analyses of a variety of cultural responses and interpretations in diverse historical contexts. Peter McCaffery and Ben Marsden use their wealth of experience in teaching and researching cultural history to identify key topics and to provide the most telling extracts, illustrating how different social and cultural factors intersect and link together to give a richer picture of the past in all its surprising complexity. They also provide authoritative and clearly written introductions that contextualize each section and show the ways in which the themes have been handled by different cultural historians.

The book provides a detailed and accessible introduction to cultural history as a discipline, outlining how it has developed since the eighteenth century and where it differs from related disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and archaeology. "The Cultural History Reader" is a perfect resource for all students of cultural history and all those interested in how focusing on cultural factors has shaped our understanding of the past.

The Cultural History Reader is the first volume to collect together the distinctive contributions made by cultural historians across the spectrum of historiographical methods. It offers a unique view into the insights to be gained from examining how cultural factors have shaped people's experiences of the world and guided their actions.

Featuring eleven thematic sections, covering everything from childhood to technology and war to popular culture, this book bridges disparate themes, periods, nationalities and religions to present detailed analyses of a variety of cultural responses and interpretations in diverse historical contexts. Peter McCaffery and Ben Marsden use their wealth of experience in teaching and researching cultural history to identify key topics and to provide the most telling extracts, illustrating how different social and cultural factors intersect and link together to give a richer picture of the past in all its surprising complexity. They also provide authoritative and clearly written introductions that contextualize each section and show the ways in which the themes have been handled by different cultural historians.

The book provides a detailed and accessible introduction to cultural history as a discipline, outlining how it has developed since the eighteenth century and where it differs from related disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and archaeology. "The Cultural History Reader" is a perfect resource for all students of cultural history and all those interested in how focusing on cultural factors has shaped our understanding of the past.

Britain in the long nineteenth century developed an increasing interest in science of all kinds. Whilst poets and novelists took inspiration from technical and scientific innovations, those directly engaged in these new disciplines relied on literary techniques to communicate their discoveries to a wider audience. The essays in this collection uncover this symbiotic relationship between literature and science, at the same time bridging the disciplinary gulf between the history of science and literary studies. Specific case studies include the engineering language used by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the role of physiology in the development of the sensation novel and how mass communication made people lonely.

As the inventor of the separate-condenser steam engine -- that Promethean symbol of technological innovation and industrial progress -- James Watt has become synonymous with the spirit of invention, while his last name has long been immortalized as the very measurement of power. But contrary to popular belief, Watt did not single-handedly bring about the steam revolution. His "perfect engine" was as much a product of late-nineteenth-century Britain as it was of the inventor's imagination.

As one of the greatest technological developments in human history, the steam engine was a major progenitor of the Industrial Revolution, but it was also symptomatic of its many problems. Armed with a patent on the separate-condenser principle and many influential political connections, Watt and his business partner Matthew Boulton fought to maintain a twenty-five-year monopoly on steam power that stifled innovation and ruthlessly crushed competition. After tinkering with boiling kettles and struggling with leaky cylinders for years without success, Watt would eventually amass a fortune and hold sway over an industry. But, as Ben Marsden shows, he owed his astonishing rise as much to espionage and political maneuvering as to his own creativity and determination.

This is a tale of science and technology in tandem, of factory show-spaces and international espionage, of bankruptcy and brain drains, lobbying and legislation, and patents and pirates. It reveals how James Watt -- warts and all -- became an icon fit for an age of industry and invention.