Hell on Wheels: The Promise and Peril of America's Car Culture, 1900-1940 (Culture America (Hardcover))
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.53 (577 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0700615156 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 276 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-10-01 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
In exposing the critical choices between collective safety and individual liberty, he recounts how Americans confronted the tensions between enforcing traffic rules and preserving drivers' liberty.In the days before mandatory drivers' education or licensing, people felt they were responsible but not accountable to the law—with the result that, between 1900 and 1940, auto accidents claimed nearly 200,000 more American lives than World War II. Along the way, he considers a host of shared values that defined the automobile age, such as the romantic freedom of driving and the common ownership of the nation's roadways. By investigating who owned cars, how they drove, and what kinds of accidents occurred, he shows how Americans struggled to resolve this dilemma.Drawing on extensive research into public safety studies, insurance records, and drivers' own stories, Hell on Wheels is an unprecedented survey of the social, political, and cultural repercussions of auto accidents. Blanke shows how the "automotive love affair" emerged as a powerful component of driving and explores the growing tension between the allure of the open road and the risk of auto accidents. Since the dawn of the auto, more than 3.2 million Americans have been killed in car accidents, yet we still thrill to the open road and feel constrained by highway speed limits. Blanke describes how Americ
ccislandguy said Poor Read. Not the best book I have ever read and It's hard to understand where it was going. Some useful information, but nothing you couldn't find by simply googling the information.
Blanke finally explains the paradox between American drivers' concerns about the lack of safety on the highways and their failure to drive more responsibly. A sophisticated and significant contribution to the literature." -- Joel W. "An excellent piece of work that fills a huge historio-graphical gap and is a pleasure to read." -- Clay McShane"An innovative and compelling analysis of American efforts to reduce automobile accidents in the first four decades of the twentieth century. Eastman
. David Blanke is associate professor of history at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi and author of The 1910s and Sowing the American Dream