One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility (Sporting (Temple University Press)) [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

This is an outstanding treatment of bicycles and their relationship to larger quality of life issues in the USA. The key idea s that of "automobility." The book is a powerful and tractable exposition, the only treatment of I know of that is not undertheorized with respect to its subject matter! (And I've read them all...)

His treatment is sociological and normative, not just descriptive and historical (assuming the latter is possible.) Apparently, this is confusing to folks. Building a solid case on a sandy foundation is always going to upset those, who, regardless of disciplinary pedigree, are only satisfied with unassailable assessments...but such is life.

Furness focuses on the *relationships* between bicycles, transportation, the built environment and the larger consumer culture (with its dominant "rugged individualist" psychology and economic "market ideology). He examines the role of the bicycle, both the role it has played and could play, in enhancing (or detracting from) the quality of life emergent among those relationships. In so doing, Furness critically helps point the way forward for bicycle advocacy, from an historically informed perspective on "automobility."

Contrary to the other reviewers, this book is not the least bit ideological. The claims of bias seem confused, even if predictable. Furness does demand critical inquiry, where third-party evidence is what matters, not the parroting of the received wisdom from various "stakeholders" in and around bicycle and transportation circles; and he assumes that ecological concerns should be primary in *any* historical or normative account of *any* technology in 2011; and he assumes that any "black box" discussion of the bicycle - as if the bicycle is ipso facto, an unimpeachable, cosmic good - is a malignant form of ideology all its own. (Which is sure to anger orthodox bicycle advocacy organizations.) These are certainly his assumed departure points. But they are methodological. Such assumptions don't undermine his thesis and discussion about the *politics of automobility* - they ground it. Every critique assumes a departure point. At least Furness' is evidentially, normatively and historically grounded. I would challenge anyone to indicate otherwise...

Furness's book will likely anger traditional bicycle advocates, especially those inclined to classically liberal political perspectives: again, his is not a reductionist treatment that isolates the bicycle in a "black box" as an unequivocal good.

Those who are interested in the decline of the quality of life in the USA; social and mechanical technology; distributed theories of learning and cognition; embodied aesthetics; transportation; the built environment; and social movements, will be fascinated and rewarded by this book. It is excellent precisely because it does not offer definitive answers, much less decontextual, ahistorical ones. It is useful and excellent precisely because so much of it is arguable!

Zack Furness's One Less Car is a major contribution to understanding the cultural development and meanings of bicycles and bicycling, and the creation, practice, and consequences of auto-mobility. It is among the very best works on transportation, culture, and social movements, each as expressed through bicycling. Furness's work is one of several recent that demonstrates the maturation of theorizing transportation. He situates bicycles and bicycling in active and changing contexts, demonstrating the fluidity of the meanings associated with bicycling, never seeking to stabilize or fix essential meanings to the bicycle. Yet Furness commits to a normative project as well, which will leave positivist-inclined academics and the general population of philosophical realists bristling.

The sheer scope of Furness's work is remarkable, while he keeps the entire work readable with thought provoking insights chapter to chapter. Each chapter stands on its own, and yet helps complete a larger image of how bicycling has achieved its status and meaning in U.S. culture today. Although the entire book is excellent, I particularly enjoyed Chapter 4 on Critical Mass and Chapter 5 on media and other representations of bicyclists. His chapter on critical mass is the very best discussion I've read, capturing the multifaceted, changing and contingent meanings of those events. He puts to shame the monolithic liberal and conservative misunderstandings and misreading of critical mass (CM) rides, and I hope that contemporary bicycle advocates - heck, all bicycle riders - read this chapter so that they better appreciate the impact of CMs on bicycling politics. Indeed, I have heard many bicycle advocates in the Twin Cities, as well as regular "avid bicyclists," dismiss and denigrate CM without realizing the debts they owe to those rides. And if one wants to better understand why bicyclists have been and are loved, revered, celebrated, despised, hated, deemed immature, healthy, patriotic, a menace, and elitist, then chapter 5 will give you answers.

Furness' treatment of every topic he handles is extraordinarily well-researched, drawing on multitudes of texts from vastly different kinds of sources including philosophy, history, cultural studies, social theory, sociology, science and technology studies, literature, popular culture, trade magazines, and advertising.

Having read the other reviews here, I have to comment on my surprise about the two negative reviews. It appears that the main thrust of one critic focuses on the eight pages devoted to the Vehicular Cycling (VC) movement, at which Furness levels a serious critique. Yet, like every other discussion in this book, I contend that Furness treats VC in a nuanced manner, including giving it its (limited) due credit. The other negative review wrongly dismisses Furness as an ideologue, missing the difference between advancing a normative project and committing to ideological dogma. Yes Furness takes seriously the situationist meanings of various facets of bicycling-as-protest, but he does so because that is a convincing framework to explain such protests. And this is not his only lens; many frameworks buttress Furness's analyses.

Furness's book is an excellent companion to Peter Norton's Fighting Traffic and Cotten Seiler's Republic of Drivers, as these three works represent the latest thinking on theories of transportation politics.

I am neither an avid cycler nor a bike advocate, but this book changed my life. The arguments that Furness makes about automobility are far more important than any differences between those in the cycling community. Furness' history is both well-written and rather riveting. I had often wondered about the derivation of Jay-walking, for instance, and discovered it in a delightful anecdote in Furness' book. Furness' grasp of history and politics is what makes this book readable and interesting to me. I would not pick up a cycling manual if it simply detailed the history of the bicycle. It is precisely that Furness is able to link cycling to larger movements in culture and politics that makes the book so fascinating.(I was fascinated to learn about the White Bike movement in Amsterdam and the way it lead to cycle sharing programs such as ones in D.C.) The previous reviewer found Furness' discussions of Situationism tedious perhaps because of his own political bias. Having read the book, I found his review unfounded and unflattering to its (the review's) author.

It is rare to find a book that will engage with the philosophical meaning of anything-- much less transportation. Furness' point that the cycle is the true 'auto-mobile' is well-taken in an age when we can't avoid how many other aspects are required to make an automobile move. As it turned out, my car was totaled as I was reading this book. I still do not own a bike, but decided-- only partly on the basis of the book, of course-- to do without a car.

If you are a cyclist, you'll find much to inspire you. Even if you aren't, you'll find a great deal to reflect upon about the meaning and culture of transportation in America. And if you are open to it, One Less Car, might change your life as well. It was a happy accident that One Less Car led, in my case, to literally One Less Car, but it also lead to one more person thinking critically-- and ejoyably-- about transportation.