Are We There Yet?, Dan Albert
Are We There Yet?, Dan Albert
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Are We There Yet?
The American Automobile Past, Present, and Driverless

Author: Dan Albert

Narrator: Michael Butler Murray

Unabridged: 12 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/31/2020


Synopsis

In Are We There Yet?, Dan Albert combines historical scholarship with personal narrative to explore how car culture has suffused America’s DNA.

Crusades against the automobile are nothing new. Its arrival sparked battles over street space, pitting the masses against the millionaires who terrorized pedestrians. When the masses got cars of their own, they learned to love driving too. During World War II, Washington nationalized Detroit and postwar Americans embraced car and country as if they were one. Then came 1960s environmentalism and the energy crises of the 1970s. Many predicted, even welcomed, the death of the automobile. But many more rose to its defense. They embraced trucker culture and took to Citizen Band radios, demanding enough gas to keep their big boats afloat. Since the 1980s, the car culture has triumphed and we now drive more miles than ever before.

Have we reached the end of the road this time? Fewer young people are learning to drive. Ride hailing is replacing car buying, and with electrification a long and noble tradition of amateur car repair—to say nothing of the visceral sound of gasoline exploding inside a big V8—will come to an end. When a robot takes over the driver’s seat, what’s to become of us?

About Dan Albert

Dan Albert holds a PhD in history from the University of Michigan. He writes about the past, present, and future of cars for n + 1 magazine.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ian

This is a really good popular history of the automobile. The personalities involved: Ford, DuPont, Durant, Sloan are well covered as are the technology and market changes. The electric vehicle revolution is not new, it just was stymied by the invention of the electric starter for ICE autos. Highly r......more

Goodreads review by carl

Made it to page 84 and ran out of gas. For me this book had a lot going for it: fun title, automotive history as the subject, the author was educated in the Michigan, home of the US auto industry. There were good stories and info, however the author is also a contributing auto columnist to a New York......more

Goodreads review by Scott

I found myself laughing aloud more often than I thought I would for a book about cars. The histories of the automotive industry, drivers, laws, and the concerns of the day were fun. Albert speeds us along that interstate with ease. The future of cars is wrapped up nicely in the Kids Today chapter --......more

Goodreads review by Kevin

A history of the automobile in America. I am struggling to place my exact issue with this book. The author does yeoman's work following the mechanical and corporate history of Detroit manufacturers but seems to fail to grasp the larger impact of the automobile in America and the legal/cultural decis......more