Download or read book America s Addiction to Automobiles written by Chad Frederick and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative look at our nation's dependency on the automobile and how its potential impact on urban design will either make or break our health, economy, and quality of life. In this thought-provoking work, author and urban planning expert Chad Frederick scrutinizes the use of automobiles in cities, investigating its role in exacerbating urban inequalities and thwarting sustainability of modern society. Through a comprehensive, thoughtful discussion, Frederick illustrates how the automobile is fundamentally at odds with the very nature of cities. He shows how cars impose huge burdens on our health, equity, environment, local and national economy, and quality of life. Most of all, he shows how automobile dependency has put our entire society at risk. The book delves into the monumental role of automobiles in the development of cities after the Great Depression, impacting the American identity and affecting the way we produce and manage urban spaces. Frederick provides compelling evidence that cities with more diverse modes of transportation are greener, healthier, more prosperous, and even more enjoyable places to live than automobile-dependent cities. He identifies one institution responsible for our inability to improve our cities: the social sciences, and examines the root cause of our inability to make progress toward more multi-modal cities. In conclusion, the author offers a radical solution for moving beyond the underlying logic that forces us to create automobile-dependent cities.
Download or read book Asphalt Nation written by Jane Holtz Kay and published by Crown. This book was released on 2012-06-20 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asphalt Nation is a major work of urban studies that examines how the automobile has ravaged America’s cities and landscape, and how we can fight back. The automobile was once seen as a boon to American life, eradicating the pollution caused by horses and granting citizens new levels of personal freedom and mobility. But it was not long before the servant became the master—public spaces were designed to accommodate the automobile at the expense of the pedestrian, mass transportation was neglected, and the poor, unable to afford cars, saw their access to jobs and amenities worsen. Now even drivers themselves suffer, as cars choke the highways and pollution and congestion have replaced the fresh air of the open road. Today our world revolves around the car—as a nation, we spend eight billion hours a year stuck in traffic. In Asphalt Nation, Jane Holtz Kay effectively calls for a revolution to reverse our automobile-dependency. Citing successful efforts in places from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, Kay shows us that radical change is not impossible by any means. She demonstrates that there are economic, political, architectural, and personal solutions that can steer us out of the mess. Asphalt Nation is essential reading for everyone interested in the history of our relationship with the car, and in the prospect of returning to a world of human mobility.
Download or read book Hell on Wheels written by David Blanke and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating look at the rise and growing popularity of the automobile during the first half of twentieth-century America, which brought with it a dark undercurrent. On the one hand, Americans embraced the newfound sense of freedom and mobility embodied by the automobile; on the other, they grew increasingly anxious about and fearful of the enormous threat that cars--and car accidents--posed to public safety.
Download or read book The Automobile and American Life 2d ed written by John Heitmann and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now revised and updated, this book tells the story of how the automobile transformed American life and how automotive design and technology have changed over time. It details cars' inception as a mechanical curiosity and later a plaything for the wealthy; racing and the promotion of the industry; Henry Ford and the advent of mass production; market competition during the 1920s; the development of roads and accompanying highway culture; the effects of the Great Depression and World War II; the automotive Golden Age of the 1950s; oil crises and the turbulent 1970s; the decline and then resurgence of the Big Three; and how American car culture has been represented in film, music and literature. Updated notes and a select bibliography serve as valuable resources to those interested in automotive history.
Download or read book The Great Book of American Automobiles written by Andrew Montgomery and published by Motorbooks International. This book was released on 2002 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore this encyclopedia of cars complemented by an exciting story about the social and economic climate of American culture. This massive 512 page book charts the progress of the automobile in America from 1907, through the explosive automotive creativity of the fifties and the renaissance of the nineties, and on to the future of the industry. It highlights the work of the big three, Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors, and also covers the smaller companies that didn't survive the thirties and forties like Crosley, Packard and Studebaker.The history of the automobile in America is in many ways the story of the American dream. The best and the worst, the successes and the failures, the classics and the bizarre - the cars that America has taken to her heart have defined American culture.The ten years following World War I in America saw the birth of mobility for the masses as car ownership changed from being a privilege of a wealthy minority to an essential part of the American way of life. Hardcover, 9" x 12", 512 pages, 500 color & 20 b/w photos
Download or read book The Prosperity Agenda written by Nancy Soderberg and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2008-07-01 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the devastating 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, the Bush administration pledged more than $500 million for earthquake relief and sent American helicopters and soldiers to help. Immediately afterward, polls showed that the number of Pakistanis with a favorable opinion of the United States had doubled to more than 46 percent. The Prosperity Agenda argues that this may be the best foreign policy moment of the entire Bush administration—at the cost of what we spend in Iraq every day—and should become a model for future action. In this provocative, ingenious book, Soderberg and Katulis make one of the most controversial arguments that foreign policy circles have seen in years: no more putting all our eggs in the basket of promoting democracy or market reforms, or even diplomacy, sanctions, or cash handouts to faltering governments. Instead, they argue, we should go right to the citizens of troubled nations and give them what they need most. People in the Congo, Iraq, Pakistan, and North Korea all have the same concerns, and the right to vote is far from the top of the list. They need freedom from war, good food and shelter, basic health care, and the reasonable hope that tomorrow will be better. It's not only the right thing to do; it's likely to do more for American interests than the policies we've been relying on for years. Why have seven years of President Bush's "freedom agenda" failed to achieve freedom or democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else? When democracy starts to sound like a code word for advancing U.S. interests, it backfires. Latin America provides an excellent example of why freedom's march has stalled, in large part due to quality-of-life issues. A 2004 survey showed that a majority of people in Latin America would rather have a government that provided economic gains than a democracy. The Prosperity Agenda embraces a new and compelling strategy for overcoming that problem and dealing with the world. Giving money, weapons, and loans with lots of strings attached doesn't do it. But handing out vaccines, disaster relief, and $100 laptops does. Working to improve the basic lives of people will, in the end, help defeat terrorism, increase America's leverage against its enemies, weaken dictatorships, and, most importantly, save the lives of millions.
Download or read book Machines of Youth written by Gary S. Cross and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For American teenagers, getting a driver’s license has long been a watershed moment, separating teens from their childish pasts as they accelerate toward the sweet, sweet freedom of their futures. With driver’s license in hand, teens are on the road to buying and driving(and maybe even crashing) their first car, a machine which is home to many a teenage ritual—being picked up for a first date, “parking” at a scenic overlook, or blasting the radio with a gaggle of friends in tow. So important is this car ride into adulthood that automobile culture has become a stand-in, a shortcut to what millions of Americans remember about their coming of age. Machines of Youth traces the rise, and more recently the fall, of car culture among American teens. In this book, Gary S. Cross details how an automobile obsession drove teen peer culture from the 1920s to the 1980s, seducing budding adults with privacy, freedom, mobility, and spontaneity. Cross shows how the automobile redefined relationships between parents and teenage children, becoming a rite of passage, producing new courtship rituals, and fueling the growth of numerous car subcultures. Yet for teenagers today the lure of the automobile as a transition to adulthood is in decline.Tinkerers are now sidelined by the advent of digital engine technology and premolded body construction, while the attention of teenagers has been captured by iPhones, video games, and other digital technology. And adults have become less tolerant of teens on the road, restricting both cruising and access to drivers’ licenses. Cars are certainly not going out of style, Cross acknowledges, but how upcoming generations use them may be changing. He finds that while vibrant enthusiasm for them lives on, cars may no longer be at the center of how American youth define themselves. But, for generations of Americans, the modern teen experience was inextricably linked to this particularly American icon.
Download or read book Why We Drive written by Andy Singer and published by Microcosm Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-29 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, we're married to our cars. But life behind the wheel of an automobile didn't come naturally to Americans. Crooked politicians, unscrupulous businessmen, burning streetcars, and convoluted tax shenanigans are a few of the players in this gripping tale of corruption, greed, and endless miles of asphalt. In Andy Singer's accessible, scandalous tale of motordom, comics, text, and historic photographs tell the story of the rise of the U.S. highway system and the corresponding demise of rail and public transportation. He also explores how we can ditch the car and rebuild a functional transportation system that can bring wealth, happiness, and freedom.
Download or read book Addicted to Oil written by Ian Rutledge and published by I.B. Tauris. This book was released on 2005-02-25 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an in-depth and historical analysis of the historical and empirical evidence of the perception that the 2003 Iraq war's rationale was fundamentally economic.
Download or read book Automobiles of America written by American Automobile Manufacturers Association and published by Cars & Parts. This book was released on 1997-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As we close the door on the first 100 years of the American auto industry, this book serves as an overview of the rise of that industry. Filled with significant events in the first 100 years of the automobile, this volume presents biographical sketches of
Download or read book Republic of Drivers written by Cotten Seiler and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rising gas prices, sprawl and congestion, global warming, even obesity—driving is a factor in many of the most contentious issues of our time. So how did we get here? How did automobile use become so vital to the identity of Americans? Republic of Drivers looks back at the period between 1895 and 1961—from the founding of the first automobile factory in America to the creation of the Interstate Highway System—to find out how driving evolved into a crucial symbol of freedom and agency. Cotten Seiler combs through a vast number of historical, social scientific, philosophical, and literary sources to illustrate the importance of driving to modern American conceptions of the self and the social and political order. He finds that as the figure of the driver blurred into the figure of the citizen, automobility became a powerful resource for women, African Americans, and others seeking entry into the public sphere. And yet, he argues, the individualistic but anonymous act of driving has also monopolized our thinking about freedom and democracy, discouraging the crafting of a more sustainable way of life. As our fantasies of the open road turn into fears of a looming energy crisis, Seiler shows us just how we ended up a republic of drivers—and where we might be headed.
Download or read book American Cars written by Jim Hampton-Maine and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American Motors Corporation written by Patrick R. Foster and published by Motorbooks International. This book was released on 2013-11-25 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Patrick Foster's American Motors Corporation: The Rise and Fall of America's Last Independent Automaker is the definitive history of the AMC corporation. Featured vehicles include the Rambler, Javelin, and more, as Foster walks the reader through not only the history of an American classic, but a history of the automotive industry itself as it evolved through emissions restrictions and the gas guzzlers of the 80s and 90s"-Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Automobile and American Culture written by David Lanier Lewis and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1983 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents essays on all phases of the American automobile industry and the effect of its product on individual lives and the culture of the society.
Download or read book The Art of Cars written by Michael Wallis and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of the smash hits Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles comes the newest film from Pixar Animation Studios, Cars, the story of a race car who learns that it's not all about the fast lane. (In fact, life begins at the off-ramp.) Offering an insider's view into the artistic development of Cars, this gorgeously illustrated book celebrates the whimsical yet painstaking research that fueled Pixar's directors, production designers, and artists. Fascinating storyboards, full-color pastels, on-the-road snapshots, and hundreds of character sketches reveal the origins of Pixar's charming and clever automobile-based world. Gleaned from the team's trips to racetracks and down the famed Route 66, The Art of Cars is as colorful as its memorable story and characters, making this book—the only movie tie-in for adults—a spirited ride down the road of a masterful animated feature film. Cars is a Walt Disney Pictures presentation of a Pixar Animation Studios film. 2006 by Disney Enterprises, Inc./Pixar Animation Studios. All rights reserved.
Download or read book Cars in America written by Andrea C. Nakaya and published by Greenhaven Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a collection of essays discussing varying viewpoints on the effect of cars on American society, covering such topics as the link between urban sprawl and automobiles, the role of law in making driving safer, and the country's future transportations needs.
Download or read book Why We Drive written by Andy Singer and published by Microcosm Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-28 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, we're married to our cars. But life behind the wheel of an automobile didn't come naturally to Americans. Crooked politicians, unscrupulous businessmen, burning streetcars, and convoluted tax shenanigans are a few of the players in this gripping tale of corruption, greed, and endless miles of asphalt. In Andy Singer's accessible, scandalous tale of motordom, comics, text, and historic photographs tell the story of the rise of the U.S. highway system and the corresponding demise of rail and public transportation. He also explores how we can ditch the car and rebuild a functional transportation system that can bring wealth, happiness, and freedom.
