Pandaemonium 1660-1886

By Humphrey Jennings,

Book cover of Pandaemonium 1660-1886: The Coming of the Machine as Seen by Contemporary Observers

Book description

Collecting texts taken from letters, diaries, literature, scientific journals and reports, Pandaemonium gathers a beguiling narrative as it traces the development of the machine age in Britain.

Covering the years between 1660 and 1886, it offers a rich tapestry of human experience, from eyewitness reports of the Luddite Riots and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Pandaemonium 1660-1886 as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The filmmaker Humphrey Jennings was a leading British surrealist and a founder of the pioneering social research project Mass–Observation. 

Built out of quotations from letters, diaries, literature, scientific journals, and official reports, Pandaemonium is his "imaginative history" of the industrial revolution in Britain. These "images," he writes, "contain in little a whole world—they are the knots in a great net of tangled time and space—the moments at which the situation of humanity is clear—even if only for the flash time of the photographer or the lighting." 

Published long after Jennings's death, Pandaemonium formed the basis for Danny Boyle's…

From Derek's list on imaginative histories.

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