War, technology, and experience aboard the USS Monitor
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War, technology, and experience aboard the USS Monitor
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000
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Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The USS "Monitor" battled the CSS "Virginia" at Hampton Roads in April, 1862. This text explores how mariners - fighting "blindly" beneath the waterline - lived and coped with the metal monster they called "the iron coffin". Combining technical, personal, administrative and literay analysis, David Mindell examines the experience of the men aboard the "Monitor" and their reactions to the thrills and dangers that accompanied the new machine. The invention surrounded men with iron and threatened their heroism, their self-image as warriors, even their lives. Mindell also examines responses to this strange new warship by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, who prophetically saw in the Civil War a portent of the mechanized warfare of the future. The story of the "Monitor" shows how technology changes not only the tools but also the very experience of combat, generating effects that are still felt in the modern-day era of "smart bombs" and "push-button wars".
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