This very original and innovative book tells a story in which sound, hearing and listening are placed at the center of the cultural life of the past two centuries, at the heart of knowledge, culture and social organization. It offers an alternative to the dominant narrative that Western culture, as it becomes modern, has moved from a culture of hearing to a culture of vision.
You need a headset: this advertising slogan of the early twentieth century has lost none of its relevance. Isolate yourself in a world of sounds, pay attention to acoustic details, seek high fidelity sound, communicate remotely and build a social network ... these practices are rooted in a set of transformations occurred at the turn of the nineteenth while gramophone , stethoscope, telephone and other listening devices become the protagonists of an exciting story, that of our sound culture.
Jonathan Sterne is interested in both anthropologists collecting native songs and Western listeners surprised by the voices of the dead. Its ambition is to give an account of the importance of the history of sound in all aspects of modernity: the evolution of sciences, the mutation of medicine, the popularization of techniques and the media, the concomitant rise of capitalism and colonialism, new forms of collective and entrepreneurial power. A history of sound modernity offers an alternative to the dominant narrative that western culture, as it becomes modern, has moved from a culture of hearing to a culture of vision. Founding book of sound studies, it is already considered as a reference in this emerging field.