Atlantic Automobilism

Emergence and Persistence of the Car, 1895-1940

Gijs Mom

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781782383772
• eBook ISBN: 9781782383789
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction — Explaining the Car: Prolegomena for a History of North-Atlantic Automobilism
• Part I — Emergence (1895-1918)
• Chapter 1 — Racing, Touring, Tinkering: Constructing the Adventure Machine (1895-1914/1917)
• Chapter 2 – How it Feels to be Run Over: The Grammar of Early Automobile Adventure
• Chapter 3 — Driving on Aggression: The First World War and the Systems Approach to the Car
• Part II — Persistence (1918-1940)
• Chapter 4 — "Why Apologize for Pleasure?" Consuming the Car in Boom and Bust
• Chapter 5 — Translation and Transition: Readjusting the Technology and Culture of Middle-Class Family Adventures
• Chapter 6 — Redefining Adventure: Domesticated Violence and the Coldness of Distance
• Chapter 7 — Swarms Into Flows: The Contested Emergence of the Automobile System
• Conclusion — Transcendence and the Automotive Production of Mobility
• Bibliography
• Index