River of Shadow

Rebecca Solnit's audacious biography of Eadweard Muybridge chronicles the captivating story of how a Victorian-era inventor and scientist not only changed the world but created our modern conception of it. Solnit brilliantly weaves together biography, history, and unique insights into art, technology, and photography to create a strikingly innovative portrayal of America on the cusp of modernity. It was in California in the late 1800s that Muybridge succeeded in photographing high-speed motion. In so doing, he created both a new technology and a new way of seeing. Solnit reveals how the peculiar freedoms and opportunities of post–Civil War California led directly to the two industries—Hollywood and Silicon Valley—that have most powerfully defined contemporary society.