| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 208 words from this article are provided below; about 550 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Linda Simon. Dark Light: Electricity and Anxiety from the Telegraph to the X-Ray. San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 2004. Pp. 357. $25.00.

Linda Simon skillfully weaves together biography, literature, primary materials, and archival records to explore the cultural beliefs and practices that created the context within which electricity was first understood within the United States. In doing so, she helps readers understand that the enthusiasm historians have often found in nineteenth-century writing on electricity was, in fact, dramatically tempered by anxieties over its physical and spiritual effects. This is not entirely new, as books by David E. Nye, Cecelia Tichi, and Carolyn Marvin have also documented American anxiety in the face of technological change. What is new here is Simon's intellectual geography and her conclusions. She deftly interweaves the writings of electricians and physicians with accounts from journalists, philosophers, and writers of fiction. She is equally at home with theories of electrification as she is with the workings of mesmerism, spiritualism, vitalism, and psychology. This ambidexterity allows Simon to conclude that the anxiety over electricity was part of a much larger anxiety about the place of the immaterial within an world of science increasingly dominated by matter.

. . .

There are about 550 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.