A Brief History of Motion

Interesting Overview. Needs Bibliography. It is actually somewhat interesting to me that of five reviews on Goodreads prior to this one, one of the reviewers specifically notes a lack of footnotes as a good thing... and this very thing is actually pretty well the only thing I could find to ding this text on. But I'm fairly consistent in that - no matter what, I expect a fact-based (vs more memoir-based) nonfiction title to include and reference a decent sized bibliography.

That noted, the substance of this text was well-written, approachable, at times amusing, and full of facts from a wide range of eras that this reader had not previously known. Even in the chapter on the development of driverless cars - much more thoroughly documented in DRIVEN by Alex Davies - there were a few facts that even having read that book and being a professional software developer (and thus more generally aware of tech than some), I genuinely didn't know before reading this book. Preceding chapters tracing the development of transportation during the 19th and early 20th centuries in particular were utterly fascinating, as was later coverage of the potential future for a car-less society. Remarkably well balanced, the text tends to steer clear - pun absolutely intended - of various relevant controversies (climate change, Peak Oil, Peak Car, autonomous vehicles, car-less society, etc) even while discussing said controversies' impact on society and future developments. Truly a solid examination of its topic, and very much recommended.

The book offers a good overview of the history of transportation and some prediction about where we're going. It's filled with tons of interesting information, so I've highlighted it all over.

For example, did you know that the oldest actual wheel ever found was discovered in Ljubljana Marshes in Slovenia? Or that wheels were not widely used for thousands of years after their invention.

There are a bunch of fun anecdotes from the history and stories of how various technologies were competing for dominance and why petrol-powered ICE won.

There's even some managerial advice from Ford himself: “the payment of five dollars a day for an eight-hour day was one of the finest cost-cutting moves we ever made.” It turns out that paying higher wages was a way of cutting costs and improving efficiency: it reduced employee turnover and hence the amount of time needed for training.

It also talks about suburban America, how that made them completely car-dependent, and how car drivers “won” over pedestrians over street ownership. In the closing chapters, he also talks about how this trend is reverting in many cities and how a varied slew of public transportation options are better for health and climate.

The book really is all over the place, so it's hard to give it a proper review or, for that matter, five stars. But I definitely recommend reading it.