Autopia: Cars and Culture - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1861891326 ISBN 13: 9781861891327

Publisher: Reaktion Books, 2002

Synopsis

The reach of the car today is almost universal, and its effect on landscapes, cityscapes, cultures – indeed, on the very fabric of the modern world – is profound. Cars have brought benefits to individuals in terms of mobility and expanded horizons, but the cost has been very high in terms of damage to the environment and the consumption of precious resources. Despite the growing belief that a Faustian price is now being paid for the freedom cars have bestowed on us, we are none the less manufacturing them in ever greater numbers. Autopia is the first book to explore the culture of the motor car in the widest possible sense. Featuring newly commissioned essays by writers, critics, historians, artists and film-makers, as well as reprinting key texts, it examines the effect of the car throughout the world, including the USA, Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, China, Cuba, India and South Africa. In this book the car is treated neither as a technological fetish object nor as an instrument of danger. Instead, it is examined as a hugely important determinant of 20th-century culture, neither wholly good nor an unmitigated disaster, and certainly endlessly fascinating.

About this title

About the Authors

Peter Wollen is Professor of Film Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Joe Kerr is Head of Programme in the Department of Critical & Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art, London, and co-editor of Autopia (Reaktion, 2002) and London from Punk to Blair (Reaktion, 2003).

Edition details

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1861891326
• ISBN 13: 9781861891327
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Wollen Peter, Kerr Joe