Description: The kaleidoscope, the stereoscope, and other nineteenth-century optical toys analyzed as "new media" of their era, provoking anxieties similar to our own about children and screens.
Review Quotes: "This multilayered study presents unique and compelling optics on the generative interplay between childhood, material, and media cultures. By deftly weaving together widely varied source material, eloquently engaging how cultural ideas echo across history, and rigorously contextualizing its histories within cultural theories, Bak paints a profound, holistic picture of the complex cultural formations that coalesce around play, proving that charting these cultural constellations around optical toys has a distinctive merit."
--American Journal of Play