Autophobia: Love and Hate in the Automotive Age

by Brian Ladd

Cars are the scourge of civilization, responsible for everything from suburban sprawl and urban decay to environmental devastation and rampant climate change—not to mention our slavish dependence on foreign oil from dubious sources abroad. Add the astonishing price in human lives that we pay for our automobility—some thirty million people were killed in car accidents during the twentieth century—plus the countless number of hours we waste in gridlock traffic commuting to work, running errands, picking up our kids, and searching for parking, and one can’t help but ask: Haven’t we had enough already? After a century behind the wheel, could we be reaching the end of the automotive age?

From the Model T to the SUV, Autophobia reveals that our vexed relationship with the automobile is nothing new—in fact, debates over whether cars are forces of good or evil in our world have raged for over a century now, ever since the automobile was invented. According to Brian Ladd, this love and hate relationship we share with our cars is the defining quality of the automotive age. And everyone has an opinion about them, from the industry shills, oil barons, and radical libertarians who offer cars blithe paeans and deny their ill effects, to the technophobes, treehuggers, and killjoys who curse cars, ignoring the very real freedoms and benefits they provide us. Focusing in particular on our world’s cities, and spanning settings as varied as belle epoque Paris, Nazi Germany, postwar London, Los Angeles, New York, and the smoggy Shanghai of today, Ladd explores this love and hate relationship throughout, acknowledging adherents and detractors of the automobile alike.

Eisenhower, Hitler, Jan and Dean, J. G. Ballard, Ralph Nader, OPEC, and, of course, cars, all come into play in this wide-ranging but remarkably wry and pithy book. A dazzling display of erudition, Autophobia is cultural commentary at its most compelling, history at its most searching—and a surprising page-turner.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

236 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2008

Reviews

[Carlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a lot of value in having a book going through the full historical evolution of anti-auto sentiment, from those 19th century agitators to today’s guerrilla urbanists. Though he claims it’s a topical survey, the author really does give us a historical overview of all the major periods of car conflict, from both sides of the spectrum.

The issue comes from that both sides…

I’m sure the author believes they are doing their academic duty to remain politically neutral and insist that every facet of every debate has two viable perspectives, and only by reconciling these differences can we….

You know the tone. It comes up most often in political science writing, but occasionally it sneaks its way into urbanism, perhaps because this is by a historian. It’s infuriating, because it seems as though with all the research and analysis offered on the automobile, the author would have an interesting take to offer on car culture, but he doesn’t. I actually think I align with the author on the issues more than he lets on, but he buries his position by scapegoating the antiautotistas at crucial points and artificially boosting pro-car claims by failing to consider the inseparable environmental impacts of automobile policy.

It’s annoying because there is good historical work here, and a bevy of good cites, but the author makes it his mission to dissuade the reader from getting this information by making the book as unlikable as possible to everyone who reads it. It’s not 1992 anymore, this is not the expectation for books. If you have a position, you should take it and not strawman your own case. And I am generously assuming the author is strawmanning, because otherwise his glib denial of the economic incentives of automobile manufacturers to bankrupt streetcar lines by buying them out and dismantling them is just plain moronic...

As with any book sympathetic to the auto, there is too much stock in the inevitability of technology, and not enough emphasis on path dependence and the difficulty of separating capitalist market expansion, commodification of land, individualism, fossil fuel interests, and the car’s expansive physical geography.

The components are all presented, and he talks about people who correctly formulate their arguments around these components, but that both sides garbage prevents this book from offering a meaningful independent contribution. As such, it really should just be read as a glorified glossary.

2.5/5, I’m sure there are more meaningful books out there, but this does give you the history in a (thankfully) succinct manner.

[Rebecca Dobrinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Autophobia, according to MedicalNet.com, is an abnormal and persistent fear of loneliness, of being alone, and of solitude. This definition makes it quite an apropos turn of phrase as a title for a book about the history of opposition to the automobile – especially since the automobile is inherently a single person activity and the modern daily commute is often done in the solitude of the driver’s seat.

In Autophobia: Love and Hate in the Automotive Age, Brian Ladd aimed to tell the history of automobility from the perspective of those who fought against the automobile and its subsequent side effects. He introduced the text with a section that defines both the pro-automobile attitude as well as that of the “car-hater,” reminding readers that the car not only “combines the promise of thrills with the sovereign assurance of mobility” but also that the “contrarians have never been silenced.” (1) He explained how the car became both savior and destroyer as it helped usher the United States and the rest of the world into modernity. Ladd stated that rational discussions about its benefits are no longer possible due to the way people inherently organize their lives around cars and transportation.

Although the reader will easily find that Ladd has an agenda, the text tended toward a more even-handed and scholarly approach to the history of the anti-automobile factions. He placed both the transportation planners’ perspectives and the car haters’ viewpoints in context, often explaining each side’s logic. However, the underlying attitude present in the text displayed Ladd’s preference for the car haters.

Interestingly, in addition to the usual technical sources such as government reports, industry research, and scholarly analyses, Ladd supported his text with a variety of cultural products depicting the automobile and the motorist. In chapter four, he put Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy into context as a commentary on the bureaucratic nature of British transportation planning. In The Hitchhikers’ Guide, the main character Arthur Dent wakes one morning to find a bulldozer ready to level his home to make way for a bypass road. When Dent and his friend Ford Prefect (who unbeknownst to Dent is actually from another planet) escape the planet prior to its destruction, Dent learns that the Earth was similarly scheduled for destruction for an interstellar bypass. As writers have shown throughout the twentieth century, sometimes it is easier to get the truth out via fiction. Ladd added references to a variety of fictional works to reiterate his ideas on the effects of transportation and the automobile on cities and people. Some of his other references included works by Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, and Andy Warhol, in addition to more recent cultural products such as the movies "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" and the apocalyptic Mad Max series.

Rather than relying on a strict chronological interpretation of this history, Ladd wrote toward a more conceptual interpretation. His subjects, divided by chapter, included the new machine, remorse, effects on cities, freeway revolts, and the question of whether or not the automotive age has come to an end. By moving from a chronological perspective, Ladd showed his readers how the anti-automotive movement had both faltered and succeeded. His thoroughness came through the narrative as he viewed the automobile through a global lens, telling stories from throughout the world. The automobile had never been strictly an American phenomenon; it transcended geographical and political boundaries and imprinted itself onto people worldwide. Thankfully, Ladd did not take the strict American interpretation of his subject.

Ladd brought up many questions as he delved deeper into the history of the car haters. How will the idea of induced traffic affect the next century’s transportation planners? Will mass transit ever truly return to America’s cities the way it never left Europe? As other critics of Autophobia have noticed, his questions lean readers toward not only a need for more information, but a desire to work towards fixing the issues raised by both sides of the automotive argument. Autophobia is an excellent and needed addition to the historiography of the automotive age, but time will tell if the automobile will ever take a “backseat” in the lives of people throughout the world.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

"It began by being a scientific experiment, went on to become the instrument of the adventurous, then became the toy of the rich, then the ambition of the poor, and finally the servant of everyone...From being the plaything of society it has come to dominate society. It is now our tyrant, so at last we have turned in revolt against it, and begun to protest against its arrogant ways."

"How frustrating, how thoroughly disheartening it is that these pig-headed, obstructive villagers, whose hens, dogs and sometimes children I mow down, fail to appreciate that I represent Progress and universal happiness. I intend to bring them these benefits in spite of themselves, even if they don't live to enjoy them!"

"Until motorists got it repealed in 1896, the Red Flag law limited the speed of a 'road locomotive' to two miles per hour in town and four in the country, and required that it be preceded by a man on foot carrying a red flag to warn passersby. The state of Vermont kept a similar law for several more years; Iowa tried one that required motorists to telephone ahead to warn towns of their arrival."

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was attracted to this by its cover photo of the the famous Berwyn "Spindle" or "car kabob" sculpture (R.I.P.), and enjoyed the book as a brief look at the history of opinions about cars and their influence on our lives. I'm puzzled by some of the negative reviews here; they seemed to be expecting an anti-car manifesto, when the book states on its jacket that it ISN'T one (but many are cited in the notes).

[Susan Mazur Stommen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Ghosts of Berlin, and my doctoral research was definitely influenced by Brian Ladd's writing (though ultimately I came to a different conclusion entirely about Rostock).

I am not really sure what his aim was in tackling this topic. Ironically, it never goes anywhere, just meanders like an aimless pedestrian.