The World Beyond the Windshield: Roads and Landscapes in the United States and Europe

摘要

When cars shifted perambulatory power from muscle to machine, roads changed. Paved highways inscribed new meaning on the environment, all the more so as the automobile became increasingly affordable. Fast cars and open roads redefined our perception of the natural world. This wonderful volume explores the dynamic relationship "between the road and the landscape that it transverses, cuts through, defines, despoils, and enhances" in the twentieth century (p. 1). The contributors focus on the technological, social, and aesthetic changes that accompanied the building of highways. Studyingthese constructions-cultural and concrete-tells us much of how different societies have shaped their environment. Highways were sites of social engagement, commercial exchange, and sometimes dissidence and resistance.