Dust: A History of the Small and the Invisible PDF
Preview Dust: A History of the Small and the Invisible
DUST A HISTORY OP-THF. SMALL & TI1£,XNVISIBLE Amato Joseph A. — /hile the story of the big has oftenbeen "told.-thestoryofthe smallhas notyetevenbeen outlined. With Dust, JosephA. Amato enthralls thereaderwith the firsthistoryofthe small andthe invisible. Dustis a poeticmeditationon howdusthas beenexperiencedandthe small has been imaginedacross theages. Examining — a thousandyearsofWesternciviHzation from thenaturalisrftofmedievalphilosophy, tothe artistryofthe Renaissance,tothescientificand industrialrevolutions, tothe modernworlds of nanotechnologyandviraldiseases Dustoffers a savvystoryofthe genesis ofthemicrocosm. Dust,whichfillsthe deepestrecesses ofspace, pervades allearthlythings.Throughoutthe ages ithasbeenthe smallestyetthemostcom- monelementofeverydayHfe. Ofall small things, dusthasbeenthemostminuteparticle theeye sees andthehandtouches. Indeed,until this century, dustwas simplyacceptedas a fundamentalconditionofhfe; like darkness, itmarkedtheboundarybetweenthe seenand theunseen. Withthe fulladventofscientificdiscovery, tech- nologicalinnovation, andsocialcontrol, dusthas beenpartitioned, dissected, manipulated, and eveninvented. Inplaceoftraditionalandgeneric dust, ahighlydiverseparticulatehasbeendiscov- eredandexamined. Like so muchelsethatwas onceconsideredminute, dusthasbeendwarfed bythetwentieth-centurytransformations ofour It€S DUST UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS berkehy los angeles london i „A_.HlSXQJLY.^OJ,._TaE_SMALL,.AND.,T,HE.,.iN Joseph A. Amato — UniversityofCalifornia Press Berkeleyand LosAngeles, California UniversityofCalifornia Press, Ltd. London, England © 2000bythe Regentsofthe UniversityofCalifornia Illustrations © Abigail Rorer LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Amato,JosephAnthony. Dust: ahistoryofthesmall and theinvisible / JosephA. Araato. p. cm. Includesbibliographical references. ISBN0-—520-21875-2 (alk.—paper). I.Dust Socialaspects History. 2.Sizeperception. 3.Science Philosophy. I. Title. RA577.D8A48 2000 — 55i-5i'i3 dc2i 99-27115 Manufacturedin the United StatesofAmerica 08 907 8067065 5044033 202101 00 99 10 Thepaperused in thispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsof ansi/niso Z39.48-1992 (r 1997) {PermanenceofPaper). To myfather, Joseph Amato (igi2-ig8g)
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