Once More to the Mountain

Abstract

A half-century after a 1959 family vacation in the Bernese Alps, an American brother and sister repeat the trip as an homage to their now-deceased parents. As they do, family memories become intertwined with more general observations about the history of technology—not only visible and obvious differences in material devices and systems over fifty years, but also more pervasive if less visible changes involving American manufacturing, the political and military priorities of the cold war, and envirotechnical changes affecting even high mountains. Ultimately the trip reaffirms the significance of continuity as well as change in understanding both personal and collective history.