Book ID: CBB207076768

Arcade Britannia: A Social History of the British Amusement Arcade (2022)

unapi

Alan Meades (Author)


MIT Press


Publication Date: 2022
Physical Details: 336
Language: English

Amusement arcades are an important part of British culture, yet discussions of them tend to be based on American models. Alan Meades, who spent his childhood happily playing in British seaside arcades, presents the history of the arcade from its origins in traveling fairs of the 1800s to the present. Drawing on firsthand accounts of industry members and archival sources, including rare photographs and trade publications, he tells the story of the first arcades, the people who made the machines, the rise of video games, and the legislative and economic challenges spurred by public fears of moral decline. Arcade Britannia highlights the differences between British and North American arcades, especially in terms of the complex relationship between gambling and amusements. He also underlines Britain's role in introducing coin-operated technologies into Europe, as well as the industry's close links to America and, especially, Japan. He shows how the British arcade is a product of centuries of public play, gambling, entrepreneurship, and mechanization. Examining the arcade's history through technological, social, cultural, biographic, and legislative perspectives, he describes a pendulum shift between control and liberalization, as well as the continued efforts of concerned moralists to limit and regulate public play. Finally, he recounts the impact on the industry of legislative challenges that included vicious taxation, questions of whether copyright law applied to video-game code, and the peculiar moment when every arcade game in Britain was considered a cinema.

...More
Reviewed By

Review Dustin Abnet (2023) Review of "Arcade Britannia: A Social History of the British Amusement Arcade". Technology and Culture (pp. 1002-1003). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB207076768/

Similar Citations

Article Rachel Maines; (2013)
'Stings and Bangs': Amateur Science and Gender in Twentieth-Century Living Spaces (/isis/citation/CBB704933445/)

Book Schüll, Natasha Dow; (2012)
Addiction by design: machine gambling in Las Vegas (/isis/citation/CBB947045565/)

Chapter Coopey, Richard; Shakesheff, Tim; (2011)
Angling and Nature: Environment, Leisure, Class and Culture in Britain 1750--1975 (/isis/citation/CBB001214632/)

Book Thierry Hoquet; (2015)
Current Perspectives on Sexual Selection: What's left after Darwin? (/isis/citation/CBB794907195/)

Book Pursell, Carroll W.; (2015)
From Playgrounds to PlayStation: The Interaction of Technology and Play (/isis/citation/CBB001422613/)

Book O. Alan Weltzien; (2016)
Exceptional Mountains: A Cultural History of the Pacific Northwest Volcanoes (/isis/citation/CBB606577407/)

Chapter Michele Gasparetto; Sergio Sartori; (2014)
Il contributo delle misure (/isis/citation/CBB771468546/)

Book Sambrook, Stephen C; Köster, Roman; Stokes, Raymond G.; (2013)
The Business of Waste: Great Britain and Germany, 1945 to the Present (/isis/citation/CBB049551629/)

Book Dewey, Peter E.; (2008)
Iron Harvests of the Field: The Making of Farm Machinery in Britain since 1800 (/isis/citation/CBB001201105/)

Chapter Adriana Di Leo; (2014)
Meccanica e società (/isis/citation/CBB010133090/)

Chapter Attilio Selvini; Peter Dannecker; (2014)
La meccanica delle armi da fuoco portatili (/isis/citation/CBB976001827/)

Chapter Roberto Curti; Andrea Cinotti; (2014)
Le macchine operatrici nella produzione industriale (/isis/citation/CBB309093350/)

Chapter Annalisa Banzi; Edoardo Rovida; (2014)
Collezioni, archivi, musei (/isis/citation/CBB331048322/)

Book Virginio Cantoni; Vittorio Marchis; Edoardo Rovida; (2014)
Storia della Meccanica (/isis/citation/CBB405054620/)

Article Juan Ricardo Nazer; Manuel Llorca-Jaña; (Autumn 2021)
The Development of the Casino Industry in Chile (/isis/citation/CBB261222871/)

Chapter Francesco Tozzi Spadoni; (2014)
Sintesi storica dello sviluppo della tecnologia tessile (/isis/citation/CBB643549977/)

Chapter Emilio Chirone; (2014)
Note sulla storia del disegno di macchine (/isis/citation/CBB046114968/)

Thesis Aytes, Ayhan; (2012)
The “Other” in the Machine: Oriental Automata and the Mechanization of the Mind (/isis/citation/CBB001560964/)

Authors & Contributors
Selvini, Attilio
Rovida, Edoardo
Dannecker, Peter
Spadoni, Francesco Tozzi
Banzi, Annalisa
Gasparetto, Michele
Concepts
Machines
Mechanics
Industry
Machine tools
Science and industry
Recreation; play
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
Renaissance
18th century
Early modern
Places
Italy
United States
Great Britain
Las Vegas, Nevada
Pacific Northwest (North America)
Germany
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment