" Lifted is a well-informed and engaging cultural history. What's more, Bernard manages to dissect processes that have shaped the transistion from the 19th century to the 20th, illustrating the elusive phenomenon of "modernity". After reading this study, it becomes at least temporarily impossible to use a lift without a brief contemplation of what it may particularly signify in the here and now." -- Times Higher Education "Bernard's passion for research is as impressive as the ease with which he--elevator-like--moves between the disciplines of literature, art history, sociology, and psychology."- Der Spiegel "The elevator, which today seems so boring, was once a vehicle of change of compelling power. Whoever reads this book will view the world's elevators with different eyes."- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "The elevator did more than make New York the city of skyscrapers, it changed the way we live, as German newspaper editor Andreas Bernard explains in Lifted. "-- New York Post "This scholarly work celebrates the emergence of an invention we all take for granted.
" -- Cincinnati Magazine "Andreas Bernard, a German newspaper editor, has written a history of the now-ubiquitous lift. Elevators made tall buildings, and thus modern urban life, possible. Upper floors became prestige laden places with desirable views, rather than wearisomely inaccessible attics. Garrets for the destitute gave way to penthouses for plutocrats. the anecdotes and insights are captivating."-- The Economist "In a new book, Lifted German journalist and cultural studies professor Andreas Bernard zeroes in on this experience, tracing mankind's relationship to the elevator back to its origins and finding that it has never been a totally comfortable one. 'After 150 years, we are still not used to it,' Bernard said. 'We still have not exactly learned to cope with this.
mixture of intimacy and anonymity.' That mixture, according to Bernard, sets the elevator ride apart from just about every other situation we find ourselves in as we go about our lives."-- Boston Globe "We live, in short, in the world that elevators made, and Lifted is a sharp-eyed, readable exploration of its making."-- Pop Matters "Bernard writes from a refreshingly European (and specifically German) perspective even if North America, and in particular, Manhattan, emerges as a key locus.amusingly obsessive, impressively erudite."-- Times Literary Supplement "Bernard's exploration of the development and wider cultural impact of the lift - moving from hierarchies within the building to the controls - is most striking.Lifted is a well-informed and engaging cultural history."-- Times Higher Education "A hugely atmospheric portrait of central European tenements and apartment buildings [.
] it crackles with imaginative energy and is full of bright and memorable scenes. It is an excellent architectural history, a magical and valuable example of the work that can be produced within the discipline."-- Icon Magazine.