A Brief History of Motion

From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next

Narrated by Liam Gerrard
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Pub Date Aug 17 2021 | Archive Date Aug 24 2021

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Description

Tom Standage's fleet-footed and surprising global histories have delighted fans and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Now, he returns with a provocative account of an overlooked form of technology-personal transportation-and explores how it has shaped societies and cultures over millennia.

Beginning around 3,500 BCE with the wheel—a device that didn't catch on until a couple thousand years after its invention—Standage zips through the eras of horsepower, trains, and bicycles, revealing how each successive mode of transit embedded itself in the world we live in, from the geography of our cities to our experience of time to our notions of gender. Standage explores the social resistance to cars and the upheaval that their widespread adoption required. Cars changed how the world was administered, laid out, and policed, how it looked, sounded, and smelled—and not always in the ways we might have preferred.

Today—after the explosive growth of ride-sharing and years of breathless predictions about autonomous vehicles—the social transformations spurred by coronavirus and overshadowed by climate change create a unique opportunity to critically reexamine our relationship to the car. With A Brief History of Motion, Standage overturns myths and invites us to look at our past with fresh eyes so we can create the future we want to see.

Tom Standage's fleet-footed and surprising global histories have delighted fans and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Now, he returns with a provocative account of an overlooked form of...


Advance Praise

“This book is full of surprises and an absolute delight.” ―Ashlee Vance, New York Times bestselling author of Elon Musk

“Perceptive, pragmatic, but never pedestrian, this is an irrepressible survey of how we've travelled through the ages, and it zips along like the most pleasurable of journeys.” ―Simon Garfield, New York Times bestselling author of Just My Type

“On the past, present, and future of transportation, Tom Standage has crafted the book to read, full of anecdote and keen observation, and seamlessly written.” ―Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics, George Mason University, and New York Times bestselling author of The Great Stagnation

“This book is full of surprises and an absolute delight.” ―Ashlee Vance, New York Times bestselling author of Elon Musk

“Perceptive, pragmatic, but never pedestrian, this is an irrepressible survey of...


Available Editions

EDITION Audiobook, Unabridged
ISBN 9781666125122
PRICE $19.99 (USD)
DURATION 8 Hours, 19 Minutes

Average rating from 8 members


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