#transatlanticmodernity

I would argue that the steam engine is less of a data point than a geologic for transatlantic modernity .. Therefore, the steam engine is not just a technology; its appearance in this Anthropocene origin story is an allegory for Enlightenment tropes such as rationality, secularism, urbanization, individualism, property, freedom, rights, masculinity, and wage labor.

FromAllegories of the Anthropocene(Duke UP, 2019)