Railroad Vision: Photography, Travel, and Perception

In 1830 the British actress Fanny Kemble described the sensation of riding in a train as "strange beyond description." This revolutionary new mode of transportation came into being at almost exactly the same time as an equally revolutionary new invention: photography. The two would radically change our perception of time, space, and our place in the world, leading to a new way of seeing that Anne M. Lyden, in this thoroughly engaging account, calls "railroad vision." In Lyden's words: "It i...