Atlantic Automobilism Emergence and Persistence of the Car, 1895-1940 [Hardcover]

Our continued use of the combustion engine car in the 21st century, despite many rational arguments against it, makes it more and more difficult to imagine that transport has a sustainable future. Offering a sweeping transatlantic perspective, this book explains the current obsession with automobiles by delving deep into the motives of early car users. It provides a synthesis of our knowledge about the emergence and persistence of the car, using a broad range of material including novels, poems, films, and songs to unearth the desires that shaped our present car society. Combining social, psychological, and structural explanations, the author concludes that the ability of cars to convey transcendental experience, especially for men, explains our attachment to the vehicle.

List of Figures
Preface

Introduction

• Explaining the car: Prolegomena for a history of North-Atlantic automobilism
• Introduction: writing a synthesis ?
• Do narratives explain?
• Constructing a master narrative
• Developing an explanatory toolbox
• Conclusions

PART I: EMERGENCE (1895 - 1918)

Chapter 1. Racing, touring, tinkering: constructing the adventure machine (1895  1914/1917)

• Introduction
• First phase: emergence and roots of the petrol car (until 1902)
• Second phase: resistance against elite touring in heavy family cars (1902  1908)
• A first analysis of automotive adventure: the masculine conquest of nature
• Third phase: the small capitalist and the average man (1908 until the war)
• Conclusions

Chapter 2. How it feels to be run over: the grammar of early automobile adventure

• Introduction
• Driving and writing: Analyzing affinities of touristic and artistic experiences
• Auto-poetics: mainstream authors
• Literary resistance against the car: CriticallÃ#