Bayley, Stephen.  Cars: freedom, style, sex, power, motion, colour, everything, photographs by Tif Hunter.  Conran Octopus, 2009 (c2008).  384p; ISBN 9781840915044, $65.00. Reviewed in 2010mar CHOICE.
47-3763  TL146   MARC 

This reviewer has been reviewing automobile books for over a decade, and now he finally has a favorite. This wonderful work, with Hunter’s outstanding photography, clearly lives up to its title. Bayley, an automotive writer/design consultant, begins with 32 pages of introductory text that is rich, elegant, informative, and just pure fun. Readers learn that the Bond Aston Martin DB5 is “the quintessence of Englishness” and that it is an Italian design that the author cleverly equates with Connery/Bond’s “exquisite suits which were in fact made by Brioni of Rome” In describing the infamous 1958 Edsel grill, he remarks that designer Roy Brown was anxious to “avoid the oppressive horizontality that was the design norm….” The text is followed by photographs of 86 automobiles, each with a short accompanying essay. Bayley does not justify/quantify/categorize his selections, nor does he suggest that these are the 86 most beautiful or innovative automobiles. They are just cars he chose at random, sometimes memorable and often idiosyncratic. This large-format book, the size of a first-year art survey textbook, weighs over five pounds and comes boxed with a suede-like cover. Its reasonable price makes it a bargain for all car lovers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All collections. — C. J. Myers, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia 

Carr, Ethan.  Mission 66: modernism and the National Park dilemma.  Massachusetts/Library of American Landscape History, 2007.  407p bibl index afp ISBN 1-55849-587-8, $39.95; ISBN 9781558495876, $39.95.  Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2008may CHOICE.
45-4969  SB486  2006-37077 CIP 

This book explains how the US national parks became what they are and provides a basis for looking at their future. Mission 66 refers to the period from 1955 to 1966, the postwar era of suburbanization and burgeoning freedom of movement for Americans. Carr (Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst) describes the stresses between environmental organizations and legislation mandating the preservation and protection of natural or cultural features, and managerial responses to increased visitation that characterized Mission 66. As the automobile became the dominant means of visiting national parks, park managers built straighter roads, bigger campgrounds, restaurants, and supermarkets. These facilities and more employees were necessary to support the flood of visitors. Although the number of national parks doubled during this era, increasing numbers of visitors were concentrated into auto-accessible areas. The book succeeds as an account of large-scale government planning and standardized environmental intervention, a comparison of visitor versus wilderness-oriented ethos, and a solid example of scholarship that both explains and enriches. Carr focuses on landscape architecture, integrating the economic, sociological, and geographic aspects of the changing national park landscape. This volume should be part of every library supporting planning, recreation, land economics, and geography. Summing Up: Essential. General readers through professionals. — E. J. Delaney, National Park Service 

Casey, Robert.  The Model T: a centennial history.  Johns Hopkins, 2008.  148p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8018-8850-6, $24.95; ISBN 9780801888502, $24.95. Reviewed in 2009jan CHOICE.
46-2627  TL215  2007-49545 CIP 

There probably is not anything new to say about the Model T Ford, so this historical work becomes more a matter of what to include and what to exclude. In this short volume, just over 120 pages, Casey (curator of transportation, The Henry Ford) takes an interesting look at the whole phenomenon, with particular attention to the astounding manufacturing process that the world had never seen before. He includes numerous fascinating photographs of the early Highland Park factory, which employed 14,000 people in 1913. In addition to manufacturing, the author reports on early marketing efforts with advertisements that strike one as thoroughly modern, including a 1924 pitch to women to “recharge the batteries of tired bodies, newly inspired for the days work.” A very nice chapter tries to communicate to the contemporary driver what it was like to start and operate a Tin Lizzie. Casey does a good job of making this a book not about Henry Ford, but about the Model T, of which he writes: “The most visible legacy of the Model T was mass automobility.” If one had to buy or read one book about the Model T, this should be the book, for its intelligent text and informative, enjoyable graphics. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. — C. J. Myers, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia 

Gudis, Catherine.  Buyways: billboards, automobiles, and the American landscape.  Routledge, 2004.  333p bibl index afp ISBN 0415934559  pbk, $22.00. Reviewed in 2005mar CHOICE.
42-4100  HF5843  2003-17457 CIP 

The rise, expansion, and retreat of outdoor advertising and its effect on US built and natural environments, as well as the conception of these environments, is the subject of this book. Gudis (Univ. of Oklahoma) has organized her argument around three themes related to these most visible and certainly explicit symbols of the market in the landscape–billboard production, distribution, and consumption. Billboards facilitated production, and thus commodification, of the landscape by selling places and spaces even as they sold commodities; indeed, billboards had the effect of making traffic a commodity for sale. Billboards flourished with, and no doubt facilitated, decentralization of retail activity, leading to development of suburban retail strips. And as billboards flourished and were viewed by more and more shoppers, a dystopic vision also gained ground, one that led to a battle between aesthetics and business over billboard reform on US roadsides. Still, even as classic billboards have largely disappeared, they had an indelible influence on contemporary pop architecture. Although framed theoretically, the book is nicely illustrated with examples of classic billboards, including a set of 13 in color; it is accessible to and should appeal to both academic and general readers. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. — J. S. Wood, University of Southern Maine 

Heitmann, John A.  The automobile and American life.  McFarland, 2009.  248p bibl index afp; ISBN 9780786440139  pbk, $39.95.  Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2009sep CHOICE.
47-0237  HD9710  2009-1474 CIP 

In this book’s introduction, Heitmann (history, Univ. of Dayton) discusses writing a work to supplant James Flink’s Automobile Age (5th ed., 1998) and questions if it is possible. This reviewer thinks he has succeeded in creating such a book. Heitmann addresses over 100 years of the automobile, including all that it influenced and vice versa. This monumental task is accomplished in 210 pages with roughly two-thirds devoted to the pre-1950 automobile and the America to which it belonged. Ten chapters are further subdivided to allow the reader to access specific content. The index is excellent and really fun to read on its own, with an interesting cast of characters such as Luke Doolin, Julius Erving, S. I. Hayakawa, and Ike Turner, to name a few. The prose is almost flawless, and the writing never feels beleaguered; it is almost like the author enjoyed every topic and every page. The book’s only drawback is that there are too few photographs for such a visual topic. The Automobile and American Life would be this reviewer’s choice for a resource for his course dealing with the automobile and American culture. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All collections. — C. J. Myers, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia 

Jakle, John A.  Fast food: roadside restaurants in the automobile age, by John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle.  Johns Hopkins, 1999.  394p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8018-6109-8, $34.95. Reviewed in 2000jun CHOICE.
37-5856  TX945  98-49864 CIP 

Jakle and Sculle reemploy their concept of place-product-packaging as a foundational construct for examining the fast food restaurant landscape. Contemporary quick-service restaurants have ancestors in 19th-century roadside taverns, railroad depot lunch counters, business district saloons, and drug store soda fountains, among others. Organized by restaurant types–e.g., hamburger places, sandwich places, ice cream places, taco and cantina places–the book offers detailed histories of individual entrepreneurs whose insights or inventions spurred development of new food forms that would command a consumer following if marketed and developed energetically. By linking product to place through distinctive building and sign design, roadside restaurant pioneers invented the principle of the standardized and reliable eating experience. But the relationship between owner-manager and employee was often the same power relationship found elsewhere in the American economy. White middle-aged men most often own and manage, whereas women, minorities, the young, and seniors operate the business under the pressure of time and cost constraints imposed by the concept of fast food. By the 1980s, 90 percent of Americans ate at least one meal each week in restaurants, and 40 percent did so on a daily basis. Today they spend over $200 billion annually in restaurants. Photographs, postcards, diagrams, and maps. All levels. — K. B. Raitz, University of Kentucky 

Jakle, John A.  The gas station in America, by John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle.  Johns Hopkins, 1994.  272p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8018-4723-0, $32.95. Reviewed in 1995mar CHOICE.
32-4201  TL153  93-36917 CIP 

Charting the mundane is difficult and tends to reward scholars with disdain from colleagues. Inescapably, however, such scholarship enables fuller understanding of any society’s cultural and social history. Jakle (cultural geography) and Sculle (cultural history), both experts in architectural history, have written a readable and usable book documenting the history of the 20th-century US gas station–and all that it entails. This is in fact a sociocultural history of the rise and development of the oil/gasoline industry in America and an analysis of Americans’ growing desire for and eventual dependence on automotive transportation. The gas station itself serves as the icon for its entire cultural universe: transportation, individualism, affluence, suburbanism, urbanization, corporate capitalism. One especially compelling aspect of this study is the careful examination of the regionalism of gasoline corporations’ dominance and the effect of legislation and regulations on the rise and fall of different companies. Such a book is important in allowing contemporary readers to perceive their own society in an objective, ethnographic way. From the photographs, logos, signs, and other images, as well as from the clear and instructive graphs and charts, readers realize the immensity of the cultural force within ostensibly lackluster everyday objects in everyday landscapes. Highly recommended at all academic levels. — J. B. Wolford, University of Missouri–St. Louis 

Jakle, John A.  Lots of parking: land use in a car culture, by John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle.  Virginia, 2004.  293p index afp ISBN 0-8139-2266-6, $34.95. Reviewed in 2005jan CHOICE.
42-2829  TL175  2003-21181 CIP 

Admit it–people do not think about parking; or rather, they think about it as an objective rather than as a factor in landscape architecture and the built environment. Jakle (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Sculle (Univ. of Illinois at Springfield), authors of the cleverly titled Lots of Parking, offer a unique, interesting view, including some readable and relatable history and philosophy; it is their goal to raise awareness regarding parking’s significance as an American landscape imperative. For anyone interested in automobile history and the growth of cities and suburbs, this will be a readable and enjoyable book. It is peppered with facts that will drive friends and relations crazy: the first commercial parking lot appeared in downtown Detroit in 1924; Chicago in 1998 issued four million parking tickets generating 175 million dollars in revenue; the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Park and Shop launched nationwide merchant-owned parking cooperatives. Americans have a lot of cars and need to put them somewhere. There is very little written on this subject and nothing really current, making Lots of Parking a must purchase for all libraries. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels. — C. J. Myers, Arcadia University 

Jakle, John A.  Motoring: the highway experience in America, by John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle.  Georgia, 2008.  274p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8203-3028-0, $34.95; ISBN 9780820330280, $34.95.  Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2008dec CHOICE.
46-2151  GV1021  2007-22330 CIP 

The first chapter of this book gives a nice history of the automobile in the US but suggests the lack of a unique focus. However, in the ensuing chapters the “highway experience” of the subtitle and the book’s different approach to automobile history become clear. Jakle (emer., geography and landscape architecture, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and Sculle (Illinois Historic Preservation Agency) take a look at interesting things that tend to get lost in the discussion of this motoring. How did roads evolve? And automotive repair garages? The standardization of road signs? What about detours? The graphics–including a glorious view from the Greyhound Scenicruiser’s observation deck–are edifying. Just as they did in their enjoyable Lots of Parking: Land Use in a Car Culture (CH, Jan’05, 42-2829), the authors provide fascinating information about automobiles and American history and culture in an attractive, approachable volume that can serve as both a scholarly resource and pleasurable reading. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers, all levels. — C. J. Myers, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia 

Jakle, John A.  Signs in America’s auto age: signatures of landscape and place, by John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle.  Iowa, 2004.  219p bibl index afp ISBN 0-87745-889-8, $49.95; ISBN 0877458901  pbk, $24.95. Reviewed in 2004dec CHOICE.
42-2284  HF841  2003-63364 CIP 

Nearly ubiquitous on the US landscape and therefore taken for granted or ignored as significant cultural artifacts, signs also inform, persuade, orient, and regulate people’s behavior. Jakle (geography and landscape architecture, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Scully (history, Univ. of Illinois at Springfield) provide a valuable treatise on how the principles of effective signage evolved and how signs have been deployed by individuals, companies, municipalities, and governments to inform or control while also lending character to places. Four major sections treat commercial signs, public place signs, personal space signs, and sign aesthetics. Iconic signs appeared in city commercial business districts in the 18th century to inform residents about the location of merchants and artisans. With the advent of central station electric power and trolley car transit, signs became larger, freestanding, and illuminated for night visibility. Billboard signs were standardized in 1900, and with the rapid increase in automobile popularity after 1910, billboards moved from central cites to gateway highways and rural highways. Commercial sign regulation was sporadic and resisted by the advertising industry. The bibliography provides a basic reference list for the sign and signage literature. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Public and academic libraries, all levels. — K. B. Raitz, University of Kentucky 

Mitchell, William J.  Reinventing the automobile: personal urban mobility for the 21st century, by William J. Mitchell, Christopher E. Borroni-Bird, and Lawrence D. Burns.  MIT, 2010.  227p bibl index afp; ISBN 9780262013826, $21.95.  Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2010nov CHOICE.
48-1430  TL220  2009-24970 CIP 

In this excellent, well-organized book, Mitchell (MIT), Borroni-Bird (director, Advanced Technology Vehicle Concepts, General Motors), and Burns (consultant; former vice president, research and development, General Motors) combine their design, engineering, and industry experience to explore the future of the automobile and urban transportation. The authors address current transportation problems, the ingrained industry status quo, and the fossil fuel/alternative fuel conflict by focusing on four key ideas. They include changing automobile design (“transform the DNA”), developing systems that allow drivers to share real-time travel and traffic information (“Mobility Internet”), linking electric cars with smart electric grids, and developing “real-time control capabilities for urban mobility and energy systems.” The content is intelligent, well laid out, entertaining, understandable, and approachable. The graphics, including numerous tables, are clear and deliver pertinent and appropriate information. Often, works about the future of the automobile industry are just tools to express idealistic beliefs or anti-industry sentiments. This book is refreshing because the authors understand the whole package in terms of current problems, and their solutions, and succinctly present a glimpse of a future (and a present) that people can feel good about. Summing Up: Essential. All collections. — C. J. Myers, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia 

Nelson, Kevin.  Wheels of change: from zero to 600 m.p.h.: the amazing story of California and the automobile.  Heyday/California Historical Society, 2009.  405p bibl index afp; ISBN 9781597141130  pbk, $24.95. Reviewed in 2010may CHOICE.
47-4985  TL24  200847911 CIP 

This large book is a great deal of fun and full of information and stories of famous events and people–as well as not-so-famous events and people. Author Nelson writes beautifully, with an air of wonder, appreciation, and enthusiasm. One gets the feeling that he likes the people he writes about and is genuinely sad that so many have passed on. The connection between California and the automobile as presented by Nelson is a perfect storm of events, people, and place. Before WW II, Hollywood stars had money, and fancy, interesting cars cost a great deal; after the war, the people whose names live on today (those who created the aftermarket, racing, and customizing industry) were all bumping elbows in California. However, the weather and the expansive, open real estate had to play a part. This may not be a book that one reads cover to cover; readers can skip a chapter and still have a ball. More photographs would have been helpful. This reviewer never gave it any thought, but clearly, without the Golden State the automobile industry and icon would be a very different thing. Includes a comprehensive index, an impressive bibliography, and valuable source notes. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All libraries. — C. J. Myers, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia 

O’Toole, Randal.  Gridlock: why we’re stuck in traffic and what to do about it.  Cato Institute, 2010 (c2009).  277p bibl index afp; ISBN 9781935308232, $24.95. Reviewed in 2010may CHOICE.
47-5146  HE203  2009-42023 CIP 

This is an important transportation-planning book written from a free-market point of view. The primary thesis is that users and not the public should pay for transportation improvements. With current transportation technologies, this means building new highways with tolls. O’Toole (Cato Institute; The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths, CH, Sep’02, 40-0423) rails against government policies that “encourage gridlock,” e.g., “traffic calming” to promote “desirable” land use patterns and transit use. He equates miles of travel with mobility benefit (access to jobs, low-cost goods, etc.), and says “anti-mobility” and “smart growth” forces want to restrict mobility. O’Toole praises the automobile, which has provided unparalleled increases in miles traveled per person in the US, compared to other modes and countries. The book is severely critical of “little used” urban transit and intercity high-speed rail, citing their high costs and small reductions in energy use and air pollution. However, O’Toole is silent on the difficulties of building new networks of toll roads. Nevertheless, while most contemporary readers will not agree with everything in this book, they will be challenged to question many long-standing assumptions and beliefs. The 28 pages of references and 13-page index are excellent. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduate students and up, faculty, and professionals. — D. Brand, formerly, Harvard University 

O’Toole, Randal.  The vanishing automobile and other urban myths: how smart growth will harm American cities.  Thoreau Institute, 2001.  545p index ISBN 0-9706439-0-X  pbk, $14.95. Reviewed in 2002sep CHOICE.
40-0423  HT167   MARC 

It is probably safer to oppose motherhood, apple pie, or the flag than to disparage “smart growth” (that is, government-mandated urban planning polices with regard to land use and transportation), but in The Vanishing Automobile O’Toole nevertheless offers a take-no-prisoners assault on its tenets and actual impacts. In 40 largely independent chapters that present 73 “myth” issues and eight city-specific case studies (including the poster child of alleged smart-growth success, Portland, Oregon), the author illustrates how attempts to make urban areas more livable and affordable (1) can end up producing more congestion and pollution and higher living costs; and (2) often only benefit chic interest groups that favor higher population densities, light-rail transit systems, and the preservation of inaccessible open lands, and oppose single-family housing, automobiles, and highways. O’Toole advocates instead decentralized decision making; employing prices and markets to allocate scarce resources and to reflect individual preferences; and transportation systems that provide mobility and allow for personal freedom of choice. With its ample footnotes, references, data, and Web resources, this volume will not end urban policy discussions, but it will finally allow a healthy debate to be enjoined. Recommended for general readers, professionals, and students, lower-division undergraduate and up. — A. R. Sanderson, University of Chicago 

Stevenson, Heon.  American automobile advertising, 1930-1980: an illustrated history.  McFarland, 2008.  267p bibl index afp; ISBN 9780786436859, $75.00. Reviewed in 2009mar CHOICE.
46-3946  HF6161  2008-23063 CIP 

This well-written and illustrated, large format book covers the major changes and trends in print advertising campaigns for automobiles from the 1930s to the 1980s. Numerous black-and-white advertisements accompany the text, and there is also a separate section of color advertisements. Stevenson has written for several car magazines and is the author of British Car Advertising of the 1960s (2005). In this new book, he examines J. Stirling Getchell’s campaign for the Plymouth, in which realism was combined with human interest; David Ogilvy’s advertisements for Rolls-Royce, which played up facts; and Doyle Dane Bernbach’s famous advertising campaign for the Volkswagen Beetle, which was clever and promoted the car’s uniqueness. In addition, the reader learns about other advertising campaigns, including those for Chrysler, Lincoln, Ford, Oldsmobile, Nash, Mercury, Buick, Studebaker, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Edsel, Hudson, De Soto, Frazer, Dodge, Jordan, and Packard. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers; all levels of students; faculty and practitioners. — E. Applegate, Middle Tennessee State University 

Sutter, Paul S.  Driven wild: how the fight against automobiles launched the modern wilderness movement.  Washington, 2002.  343p bibl index afp ISBN 0-295-98219-5, $35.00. Reviewed in 2002sep CHOICE.
40-0265  QH76  2002-24206 MARC 

Sutter (history, Univ. of Georgia) focuses on the origins of wilderness protection and particularly on the founding of the Wilderness Society in 1934, one of the key events in the emergence of the modern environmental movement. His thesis is that the modern wilderness movement was a response to the interwar craze for automobiles, road building, and recreational tourism and not a reaction to industrialization, logging, or the rise of scientific ecology. After opening chapters reviewing the literature on how the concept of wilderness originated and on the growth of outdoor recreation, four chapters look in detail at four of the key figures responsible for founding the Wilderness Society: Robert Marshall, Aldo Leopold, Robert Sterling Yard, and Benton MacKaye. Focusing on the period from about 1915 to 1935, he traces the path by which each developed his concept of wilderness. Sutter ably demonstrates that while their motives and concepts were diverse, all four founders feared that roads and cars were destroying the last remnants of American wilderness, abetted by government’s willingness to encourage modernization and tourism. Nicely written; extensively referenced. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. — T. S. Reynolds, Michigan Technological University