Traces of Modernity

This book offers critical engagements with four objects from the nineteenth century: The ruins of the Crystal Palace in Sydenham and the dinosaurs that remain, the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum and the short novel by H.G. Wells -- The Time Machine. These provide very different forms of encounter, but are bound by the shadow of the Great Exhibition of 1851.This immense spectacle helped forge our understanding of display, surveillance and commodity. This l...