Channel Tunnel Visions, 1850–1945: Dreams and Nightmares by Keith Wilson

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 855 Patent Office, he could have argued even more persuasively that “Baekeland successfully constructed not only a new plastic but also a specific historical account ofthat invention” (p. 144, italics in original). These minor flaws ironically reinforce a conclusion that Bijker has produced a significant work of considerable interpretive power, es­ sential for anyone seeking to understand the seamless web of culture resulting from the interactions of technology and society. Jeffrey L. Meikle Dr. Meikle is professor of American studies and art history at the University of Texas at Austin. His most recent work is American Plastic: A Cultural Histoiy. Channel Tunnel Visions, 1850-1945: Dreams and Nightmares. By Keith Wilson. London and Rio Grande (Ohio): Hambledon Press, 1994. Pp. xvi+239; illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $25.00 (hardcover). The scope of this book is considerably narrower than its title sug­ gests. Channel Tunnel Visions focuses quite specifically on discussions within the British government regarding the advisability of authoriz­ ing the construction of a railway tunnel under the English Channel. In the author’s view, “everything depended on the British govern­ ment sanctioning one or another of the proposed schemes” (p. xiv), so he pays little attention to other dreams and nightmares, such as those ofjournalists, entrepreneurs, or engineers. In this volume, then, the reader will find detailed consideration of a series of debates within various committees and branches of public administration, almost entirely in the years from 1880 to 1920. The author has chosen to quite liberally from his sources, in some cases so liberally that the text is almost a series of documents, an approach that often renders personalities and internal politics quite vividly. But the focus on government views has the unfortunate effect of overemphasizing military concerns about the tunnel, because na­ tional defense is a government responsibility, and almost completely neglecting commercial interests, which are extragovernmental. The tunnel’s prehistory in this volume is thus presented largely as dia­ logue between those who believed that maintaining a physical sep­ aration from the Continent was crucial to Britain’s future inde­ pendence and military security, and those who believed that the Channel was a barrier to Britain’s future well-being. A fundamental problem with this volume is that the author pre­ sents no significant critique ofthe views presented therein. The occa­ sional discussion oftunneling technology is not framed by any assess­ ment of what was possible in the context of the era. Other 856 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE technological points, such as assertions that the tunnel could be de­ stroyed by enemy action, are similarly unframed by references to contemporary technology. (Moreover, few of the illustrations pro­ vide any insight into technical matters.) Thus we have a book dealing with quite sophisticated technologies that provides the reader virtu­ ally no historical context for them. Read as an adjunct to other works on tunneling or the Channel Tunnel this volume may be useful, but I think that many readers—especially historians of technology—will find that Channel Tunnel Visions raises far more questions than it an­ swers. Darwin H. Stapleton Dr. Stapleton is the director of the Rockefeller Archive Center and compiled The History of Civil Engineering Since 1600: An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Gar­ land, 1986). The Modem Epidemic: A History of Tuberculosis in Japan. By William Johnston. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995. Pp. xvii+432; tables, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00 (cloth). What 20th-century disease kills people slowly over many years and is usually not discovered until the malady is far advanced? Which affliction stigmatizes its victims, so that those in the last stages of their lives frequently are shunted off to die among fellow patients? What epidemic was ignored for years by societies and their govern­ ments, despite its costs to the economy and humanity? Ifyou answeredAIDS, you are wrong. As WilliamJohnston demon­ strates in The Modem Epidemic: A History of Tuberculosis inJapan, the most deadly disease in the 20th century (indeed, more deadly than in the 19th) has been tuberculosis. Expertly utilizing a wide variety ofjournals, statistics, and literary works, Johnston describes the tu­ berculosis epidemic inJapan in all its facets—social, economic...