The Automobile

This comprehensive chronology of the automobile covers its engineering as well as the social, cultural and political impact of the car from the invention of the wheel to the O.J. Simpson car chase. It examines the auto industry, the road and roadside, the car in popular culture, fuel history, the spatial transformation of cities, air pollution, critics of car culture, traffic accidents, the globalization of car culture, and much more. This is a reference guide for students and scholars of transportation history and for anyone with an interest in the development of automobiles.

Clay McShane is Professor of History at Northeastern University and a noted authority on transportation history. Among his earlier publications is Down the Asphalt Path: American Cities and the Automobile.