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Zusatztext 68272793 Informationen zum Autor Gijs Mom is an historian of technology and teaches at Eindhoven University of Technology. A literary historian turned automotive engineer, Mom is author of The Electric Vehicle: Technology and Expectations in the Automobile Age (Johns Hopkins 2004); founder of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T2M); and editor of Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies (Berghahn Books). Klappentext 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. Zusammenfassung 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. Inhaltsverzeichnis 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: Critical voices from the UK Colonialism by car: Gendered travel writing Male violence and aggression: A French-Belgian group of writer-motorists Sub-literary novels: the Williamsons and youth novels Flight Forward: The avant-garde, silent movies, and the celebration of automotive violence Tarkington, Cather and Dreiser: auto-poetics before America’s entry int...
