Cars are the scourge of civilization, responsible for everything from
suburban sprawl and urban decay to environmental devastation and rampant
climate change--not to mention our slavish dependence on foreign oil
from dubious sources abroad. Add the astonishing price in human lives
that we pay for our automobility--some thirty million people were killed
in car accidents during the twentieth century--plus the countless number
of hours we waste in gridlock traffic commuting to work, running
errands, picking up our kids, and searching for parking, and one can't
help but ask: Haven't we had enough already? After a century behind the
wheel, could we be reaching the end of the automotive age? From the
Model T to the SUV, Autophobia reveals that our vexed relationship
with the automobile is nothing new--in fact, debates over whether cars
are forces of good or evil in our world have raged for over a century
now, ever since the automobile was invented. According to Brian Ladd,
this love and hate relationship we share with our cars is the defining
quality of the automotive age. And everyone has an opinion about them,
from the industry shills, oil barons, and radical libertarians who offer
cars blithe paeans and deny their ill effects, to the technophobes,
treehuggers, and killjoys who curse cars, ignoring the very real
freedoms and benefits they provide us. Focusing in particular on our
world's cities, and spanning settings as varied as belle epoque Paris,
Nazi Germany, postwar London, Los Angeles, New York, and the smoggy
Shanghai of today, Ladd explores this love and hate relationship
throughout, acknowledging adherents and detractors of the automobile
alike. Eisenhower, Hitler, Jan and Dean, J. G. Ballard, Ralph Nader,
OPEC, and, of course, cars, all come into play in this wide-ranging but
remarkably wry and pithy book. A dazzling display of erudition,
Autophobia is cultural commentary at its most compelling, history at
its most searching--and a surprising page-turner.
