America and the World Experience
Six talks on the ere of America's bicentennial celebrations by Daniel J. Boorstin , Librarian of Congress and former Senior Historian at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
5: The Dark Conttnrmt of Technology: the IInJorøcd Contemporary
In this penultimate lecture Dr Boorstin continues to examine the ways in which 20th-century technology has neutralised some of those special opportunities that existed at the time of his nation's Founding Fathers. From the Influence of modern technology on the modern American's sense of space, he turns to its effects on his sense of time. Although his fellow countrymen have a wider sense of the present world than previous generations had, Dr Boorstin argues, they are increasingly out of touch with the past, with history and tradition, and are creating less to be Inherited by posterity.