Constructing Charisma Celebrity, Fame, And Poer In Nineteenth-Century Europe [Paperback]

Railroads, telegraphs, lithographs, photographs, and mass periodicalsthe major technological advances of the 19th century seemed to diminish the space separating people from one another, creating new and apparently closer, albeit highly mediated, social relationships. Nowhere was this phenomenon more evident than in the relationship between celebrity and fan, leader and follower, the famous and the unknown. By mid-century, heroes and celebrities constituted a new and powerful social force, as innovations in print and visual media made it possible for ordinary people to identify with the famous; to feel they knew the hero, leader, or star ; to imagine that public figures belonged to their private lives. This volume examines the origins and nature of modern mass media and the culture of celebrity and fame they helped to create. Crossing disciplines and national boundaries, the book focuses on arts celebrities (Sarah Bernhardt, Byron and Liszt); charismatic political figures (Napoleon and Wilhelm II); famous explorers (Stanley and Brazza); and celebrated fictional characters (Cyrano de Bergerac).

It is one of the key achievements of Edward Berenson and Eva Gilois lively volume to remind us that many of the mechanisms, phenomena and discussions readily associated with the present day date back to the 1800san age Leo Braudy calls the first century of mass culture. The concept ofcharismainvariably presented with all the Weberian trimmingsis used here as an analytical leitmotif to provide the different contributions with an additional degree of coherence. What is more, the volumes eponymous claim about the constructability of charisma is picked up very ingeniously in Braudys concluding observations, which deliver a thought-provoking punch line.? ??European History Quarterly

&a lively collection, with invaluable insights for scholars worlÃ#