History Faculty Publications
Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
9-2015
Publication Source
Journal of the Society of Automotive Historians
Abstract
Gijs Mom particularly wants to answer the question of Why? Why the car (and not, say, the bicycle) Why in the North-Atlantic realm, and not elsewhere initially? During the course of seven intense and lengthy chapters that are further divided into two parts (1895-1918 and 1918-1940) Mom goes deep into motives as to why the internal combustion engine car has come to dominate our lives. These include masculinity and adventure; tourism; male violence and aggression; pleasure and consumption; encapsulation in closed vehicles and the cyborg relationship between driver and the machine; thrills and risks; gender and family structures; tinkering and maintenance; and finally competing technological systems involving the flexible motor vehicle and rail. Mom's work is fundamentally a cultural history, drawing on both non-fiction and fiction. Yet more than that, it represents one slice of a total history, with a subsequent history of motor vehicle technology.
Inclusive pages
11
ISBN/ISSN
1057–1973
Document Version
Published Version
Copyright
Copyright © 2015, The Society of Automotive Historians
Publisher
The Society of Automotive Historians
Issue
276
Peer Reviewed
yes
eCommons Citation
Heitmann, John Alfred, "Review: 'Atlantic Automobilism: Emergence and Persistence of the Car, 1895-1940'" (2015). History Faculty Publications. 65.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/hst_fac_pub/65
Comments
This document is provided for download by permission of the publisher. Permission documentation is on file.
Book citation infomrmation: Mom, Gijs. Atlantic Automobilism: Emergence and Persistence of the Car, 1895-1940. New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2014.