Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America
| Date: 28 April 2011, 07:23
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Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America
By Cotten Seiler
* Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
* Number Of Pages: 240
* Publication Date: 2008-12-15
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0226745643
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780226745640
Product Description:
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.
Summary: A very smart and interesting way to look at drivers, and cars, in America
Rating: 5
The Republic of Drivers threads together things you know, and things you have wondered about, in a credible and insightful book about what driving means to us. As I read I kept finding a larger and interesting context for understanding our driving way of life. We all see how getting a driver's license at 16 is the absolute center of one's world, and how giving up a driving license in old age is terribly difficult. What's behind the importance of driving?
Seiler's common sense and scholarship make this a book you can trust. He tells us what happened as cars began to be for everyone, and how the choice to fund highway development through universal taxation shaped our culture and our country. (I confess, it had never occurred to me that there might have been other options.) The chapters on women drivers and African American drivers alone are intriguing enough to justify a careful read of this book.
The story is told by an author who never patronizes and always engages. I also now have a perspective that I'm eager to use while watching what happens next in Detroit, and what is happening with automobility in China too.
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