About this item
Between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, Americans underwent a dramatic transformation in self-conception: having formerly lived as individuals or members of small communities, they now found themselves living in networks, which arose out of scientific and technological innovations. There were transportation and communication networks. There was the network of the globalized marketplace, which brought into the American home exotic goods previously affordable to only a few. There was the network of standard time, which bound together all but the most rural Americans. There was the public health movement, which joined individuals to their fellow citizens by making everyone responsible for the health of everyone else.
About the Author
Steven Cassedy grew up in Great Neck, NY. An accomplished classical pianist, he attended The Juilliard School, Pre-College Division, in high school. He received his BA in comparative literature at the University of Michigan and his PhD in comparative literature at Princeton. He joined the faculty of the University of California, San Diego, in 1980 and retired in 2018 as Distinguished Professor of Literature and Associate Dean of the Graduate Division. His scholarly interests have ranged widely, from French, German, Russian, and Yiddish literature, to philosophy, religion, history of science, music, and American cultural studies. In San Diego, he frequently appeared on stage as lecturer and performing musician. He is the author of six previous books, including To the Other Shore: The Russian Jewish Intellectuals Who Came to America (Princeton, 1997) , Dostoevsky's Religion (Stanford, 2005) , and Connected: How Trains, Genes, Pineapples, Piano Keys, and a Few Disasters Transformed Americans at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (Stanford, 2014) , which won a gold medal in US history at the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) , 2014. He and his wife Patrice, a playwright, live in Riverdale, Bronx, close to their children, their children's spouses, and their three grandchildren.
