The War on Cars28 Jan 2025

TEASER: The Romance of the Automobile

This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, pre-sale tickets to live shows, and more, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.

You've probably heard us talking about how we have written a book that will be coming out this fall. We are super excited to share more about that very soon. We've spent a lot of the last year in the research and writing process. And what became apparent very soon was that there were a lot of things that we weren't going to be able to fit into the book, no matter how hard we tried.

So we put together a little bonus episode for you on one of the fascinating things we found that just didn't make the final draft. It's a book called The Romance of the Automobile Industry: Being the Story of Its Development—Its Contribution to Health and Prosperity—Its Influence on Eugenics—Its Effect on Personal Efficiency—and Its Service and Mission to Humanity as the Latest and Greatest Phase of Transportation.

Published in 1916, it's essentially a 460-page ad, lavishly illustrated with pictures of bewhiskered white men and their inventions. And even after all the time we've spent thinking about cars, this book still had some surprises. (And yes, you read that right…he talks about eugenics. We'll explain.)

Subscribe on Patreon for access to the whole bonus episode!

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(251)

PREVIEW: What Bicycles Can Do for Cities, via Velo-city 2026

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live...

25 Aug 11min

Let's Get Political [Re-release]

***We're taking a quick summer break this week so we're releasing this recent Patreon bonus episode into the general feed. We hope you enjoy it as a taste of what you can get if you sign up to support...

18 Aug 1h 6min

Human Transit with Jarrett Walker

Jarrett Walker's career has been dedicated to improving the quality of public transit in the United States and beyond. A specialist in bus network design, he has led transit planning projects around N...

4 Aug 56min

PREVIEW: Bike is Best with Adam Tranter

28 Juli 10min

Final Dispatches from Book Tour

Our final Life After Cars book tour roundup episode is here, with our reports from Atlanta, Memphis, Chicago, Montréal, Orlando, Portland, Maine, and many, many more great North American cities! We ge...

21 Juli 1h 10min

Sidewalk Nation

In most parts of the United States and elsewhere, sidewalks exist in a legal grey area. They are public spaces that, at least when it comes to things such as maintenance and snow removal, are largely ...

7 Juli 1h 6min

PREVIEW: Urban Planning Pop with Pondless

30 Juni 3min

Rethinking Criminal Consequences for Drivers Who Kill

What should happen to drivers who kill or injure someone with their car? Does a focus on punishment for "reckless" or "dangerous" drivers let everyone else off the hook and never force them to look at...

23 Juni 1h 1min