Age of Betrayal

Zusatztext An engaging! responsible and compelling book. It offers an excellent introduction to the epic saga of late 19th-century America and an important message for our own time. The San Diego Union-Tribune Illuminated and enlivened. . . . [Beatty's] ability to hot-wire our history to the here and now is what gives Age of Betrayal its distinctive bite. Los Angeles Times Book Review Readers will immediately by impressed by the range of subject matter he can handle! from political! economic! and constitutional history to the history of labor! social movements and time. . . . Absorbing in its detail and refreshingly uncompromising in its perspective. The Boston Globe .A shocking! heart-breaking account of corruption and just plain meanness. The Providence Journal Informationen zum Autor Jack Beatty Klappentext "Age of Betrayal" is a brilliant reconsideration of America's first Gilded Age! when war-born dreams of freedom and democracy died of their impossibility. Focusing on the alliance between government and railroads forged by bribes and campaign contributions! Jack Beatty details the corruption of American political culture that! in the words of Rutherford B. Hayes! transformed "a government of the people! by the people! and for the people" into "a government by the corporations! of the corporations! and for the corporations." A passionate! gripping! scandalous and sorrowing history of the triumph of wealth over commonwealth. Leseprobe Chapter 1: Annihilating Space There have been two great dispensations of civilization, the Greek & Christian and now comes the railroad. William Cregg,southern textile mill owner, 1853Julius Caesar regularized the calendar in 46 B.C. Pope Gregory XIII reformed it in 1582. King George III subtracted eleven days from the British calendar nearly 200 years later. On November 18, 1883, America's railroad corporations stopped time.In the 1850s Americans set their watches to eighty local timesthirty-eight in Wisconsin alone, twenty-seven in Indiana, twenty-three in Illinois. Noon in Chicago was 11:27 A.M. in Omaha, 11:50 A.M. in St. Louis, 12:09 P.M. in Louisville, and 12:31 P.M. in Pittsburgh. An 1883 railway gazetteer included time conversion tables for over 8,000 stations. Fingers plowed the ink off dark columns of type, plotting a route across the temporal Babel.Yet, perhaps because few Americans traveled far, most of them tolerated this time quilt, to judge by the letters column of the New York Times , which printed seven letters of travelers' complaints in fifteen years. Basically, Americans took nature's word for time: Noon arrived when the sun looked nearest to being overhead, at times that differed with locations. (A movement of one degree around the earth's surfaceabout 48 miles due east or west in the United Stateschanges local time four minutes, according to one authority.) Town clocks, to be sure, were set not by sundials but by almanacs that averaged the sun's variations over months and years. A scattering of localities rented astronomically precise time from observatories, which wired them through Western Union.These innovations, however, only welded time more firmly to place. [I]t would appear to be as difficult to alter by edict the ideas and habits of the people in regard to local time, a U.S. Senate report concluded in 1882, as it would be to introduce among them novel systems of weights [and] measures. The Senate failed to reckon with a self-sovereign power that, having annihilated spacea railroad-boomer verb phrasesought dominion over time. The sun told time from Genesis to 12:01 A.M. on November 18, 1883, when the railroads dispensed with it. The sun, the Indianapolis Centennial commented, is no longer to boss the job. Fifty-five million people must eat, sleep, and work as well as travel by railroad time. . . . The sun...

Auteur

Jack Beatty

Texte du rabat

"Age of Betrayal" is a brilliant reconsideration of America's first Gilded Age, when war-born dreams of freedom and democracy died of their impossibility. Focusing on the alliance between government and railroads forged by bribes and campaign contributions, Jack Beatty details the corruption of American political culture that, in the words of Rutherford B. Hayes, transformed "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people" into "a government by the corporations, of the corporations, and for the corporations." A passionate, gripping, scandalous and sorrowing history of the triumph of wealth over commonwealth.

Résumé
Age of Betrayal is a brilliant reconsideration of America's first Gilded Age, when war-born dreams of freedom and democracy died of their impossibility. Focusing on the alliance between government and railroads forged by bribes and campaign contributions, Jack Beatty details the corruption of American political culture that, in the words of Rutherford B. Hayes, transformed “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people” into “a government by the corporations, of the corporations, and for the corporations.” A passionate, gripping, scandalous and sorrowing history of the triumph of wealth over commonwealth.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1: Annihilating Space*There have been two great dispensations of civilization, the Greek & Christian and now comes the railroad.—William Cregg,southern textile mill owner, 1853Julius Caesar regularized the calendar in 46 B.C. Pope Gregory XIII reformed it in 1582. King George III subtracted eleven days from the British calendar nearly 200 years later. On November 18, 1883, America’s railroad corporations stopped time.In the 1850s Americans set their watches to eighty local times—thirty-eight in Wisconsin alone, twenty-seven in Indiana, twenty-three in Illinois. Noon in Chicago was 11:27 A.M. in Omaha, 11:50 A.M. in St. Louis, 12:09 P.M. in Louisville, and 12:31 P.M. in Pittsburgh. An 1883 railway gazetteer included time conversion tables for over 8,000 stations. Fingers plowed the ink off dark columns of type, plotting a route across the temporal Babel.Yet, perhaps because few Americans traveled far, most of them tolerated this time quilt, to judge by the letters column of the *New York Times, which printed seven letters of travelers’ complaints in fifteen years. Basically, Americans took nature’s word for time: Noon arrived when the sun looked nearest to being overhead, at times that differed with locations. (“A movement of one degree around the earth’s surface—about 48 miles due east or west in the United States—changes local time four minutes,” according to one authority.) Town clocks, to be sure, were set not by sundials but by almanacs that averaged the sun’s variations over months and years. A scattering of localities rented astronomically precise time from observatories, which wired them through Western Union.These innovations, however, only welded time more firmly to place. “[I]t would appear to be as difficult to alter by edict the ideas and habits of the people in regard to local time,” a U.S. Senate report concluded in 1882, “as it would be to introduce among them novel systems of weights [and] measures.” The Senate failed to reckon with a self-sovereign power that, having “annihilated” space—a railroad-boomer verb phrase—sought dominion over time. The sun told time from Genesis to 12:01 A.M. on November 18, 1883, when the railroads dispensed with it. “The sun,” the Indianapolis Centennial commented, “is no longer to boss the job.” Fifty-five million people “must eat, sleep, and work as well as travel by railroad time. . . . The sun will be requested to rise and set by railroad time. The planets must, in the future, make their circuits by such timetables as railroad magnates arrange.”[1]Those magnates rode the mystique of progress. T…