Shocking Bodies
Life, Death and Electricity in Victorian England
Published on 11. April 2011
224 pages
978-0-7524-6381-0 (ISBN)
Description
For the Victorians, electricity was the science of spectacle and of wonder. It provided them with new ways of probing the nature of reality and understanding themselves. Luigi Galvani's discovery of 'animal electricity' at the end of the eighteenth century opened up a whole new world of possibilities, in which electricity could cure sickness, restore sexual potency and even raise the dead.
In Shocking Bodies, Iwan Rhys Morus explores how the Victorians thought about electricity, and how they tried to use its intimate and corporeal force to answer fundamental questions about life and death. Some even believed that electricity was life, which brought into question the existence of the soul, and of God, and provided arguments in favour of political radicalism. This is the story of how electricity emerged as a powerful new tool for making sense of our bodies and the world around us.
In Shocking Bodies, Iwan Rhys Morus explores how the Victorians thought about electricity, and how they tried to use its intimate and corporeal force to answer fundamental questions about life and death. Some even believed that electricity was life, which brought into question the existence of the soul, and of God, and provided arguments in favour of political radicalism. This is the story of how electricity emerged as a powerful new tool for making sense of our bodies and the world around us.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Stroud
United Kingdom
File size
1,07 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-7524-6381-0 (9780752463810)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
03/2011
The History Press Ltd
€36.11
Article not available at the moment
Person
Iwan Rhys Morus
