Inventing Modern: Growing Up with X-Rays, Skyscrapers, and TailfinsModern is a word much used, but hard to pin down. In Inventing Modern, John H. Lienhard uses that word to capture the furious rush of newness in the first half of 20th century America. An unexpected world emerges from under the more familiar Modern. Beyond the airplanes, radios, art deco, skyscrapers, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Buck Rogers, and the culture of the open road Burma Shave, Kerouac, and White Castles lie driving forces that set this account