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Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars
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Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars Paperback - 2013

by Paul Ingrassia

Summary

From the assembly lines of Henry Ford to the open roads of Route 66, America’s history is a vehicular history–an idea brought brilliantly to life in this major work by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Paul Ingrassia.

Engines of Change is a wondrous epic in fifteen automobiles, including the Corvette, the Beetle, and the Chevy Corvair, as well as the personalities and tales behind them: Robert McNamara’s unlikely role in Lee Iacocca’s Mustang, Henry Ford’s Model T, as well as Honda’s Accord, the BMW 3 Series, and the Jeep, among others. Through these cars and these characters, Ingrassia shows how the car has expressed the particularly American tension between the lure of freedom and the obligations of utility. Narrative history of the highest caliber, Engines of Change is an entirely edifying new way to look at the American story.

Details

  • Title Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars
  • Author Paul Ingrassia
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Pages 416
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Simon & Schuster, NY
  • Date 2013-05-14
  • Features Bibliography, Index, Price on Product - Canadian, Table of Contents
  • ISBN 9781451640649 / 1451640641
  • Weight 0.9 lbs (0.41 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2 in (21.08 x 13.97 x 3.05 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 20th Century
  • Library of Congress subjects Automobiles - Social aspects - United States, Automobiles - United States - History
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2012002303
  • Dewey Decimal Code 629.222

Excerpt

1


WHEN HENRY MET SALLIE: CAR WARS AND CULTURE CLASHES AT THE DAWN OF AMERICA’S AUTOMOTIVE AGE





Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars.

—John Steinbeck, Cannery Row1

Just north of downtown Detroit on a small street called Piquette sits an inner-city storefront church called the Abundant Faith Cathedral. By the looks of the surrounding weed-choked lots and empty factories, abundant faith is exactly what’s needed, not to mention plenty of hope. The neighborhood is a postindustrial ghetto, although right across the street from the church is a functioning business called the General Linen & Uniform Service. It occupies the first floor of an old building where, as unlikely as it seems, modern America began.

Media reviews

âÈêUsing his nimble narrative gifts, Mr. Ingrassia turns the creation stories behind the Prius and other cars into gripping accounts of how visionary design, corporate competition and inventive engineering combined to produce automobiles that would come to represent an era or a mind-set.âÈëâÈ'Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

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