Synopses & Reviews
This is a perceptive study of the relationship between technology and culture. Orvell discusses Whitman and his world, then considers material culture, photography, and literature. Among the cultural figures discussed are writers Henry James, John Dos Passos, and James Agee; photographers Alfred Stieglitz and Margaret Bourke-White; and architect-designers Gustav Stickley and Frank Lloyd Wright. A witty essay on the significance of junk in the 1930s concludes the book.
Review
A smoothly written, imaginatively researched study.
Kirkus Reviews
Review
Stippled with descriptive insights that will reward any reader interested in the . . . debate between copying and creating the 'real thing.
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
Review
A rich and complex study. It casts new and revealing light on the cultural transformations of the early 20th century.
New Republic
Review
"A smoothly written, imaginatively researched study.
Kirkus Reviews"
Review
Intriguing.
New York Times Stippled with descriptive insights that will reward any reader interested in the . . . debate between copying and creating the 'real thing.
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography A rich and complex study. It casts new and revealing light on the cultural transformations of the early 20th century.
New Republic A smoothly written, imaginatively researched study.
Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
This book is a perceptive examination of the relationship between technology and culture. 'The Real Thing' begins with a discussion of Walt Whitman and his world and then expands to a consideration of material culture, photography, and literature, detailing the shift from a nineteenth-century culture of imitation to an early-twentieth-century culture of authenticity.