An original telling of the story of Eadweard Muybridge, who in 1872 succeeded in capturing high-speed motion photographically, thus making movies possible. Solnit uses the story of Muybridge as a lens for a larger story about the transformation of time and space by railroads, telegraphy, photography, and myriad other contributions to the acceleration and industrialization of everyday life. She boldly asserts that the world as we know it today began in California in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.