As automakers roll out a greater variety of electric models and governments increase support to encourage drivers to make the shift to battery power, the days of the internal-combustion vehicle appear to be numbered. Presumably, most people would see that shift as a positive development to address climate change, as long as electric vehicles come down in price. But not so for Bryan Appleyard.
In his book The Car: The Rise and Fall of the Machine That Made the Modern World, Appleyard takes readers through the history of the automobile from the perspective of a car enthusiast. According to him, we may be just a few years away from a situation in which owning a car could be as “eccentric as owning a train or a bus. Or perhaps it will simply be illegal.” His definition of the car is a narrow one: a human-driven vehicle with an internal-combustion engine, uniquely imbued by human innovation with the power to grant “generalised political and social freedom” to the public, to the degree that its drawbacks may not be enough to merit getting rid of it.
After laying out the basics of his argument, Appleyard weaves a history of the rise of the automobile through the stories of the Great Men (and occasional notable woman) of automotive history. Henry Ford, General Motors’ Alfred P. Sloan Jr., early pioneer Karl Benz, and various fascists are just some of the characters that pop up in these chapters tracking the automobile’s development—from its early designs and eventual mass production to its shifting forms over the decades right up to the car we know today. It’s a history with insightful points, including how important the bicycle was in laying the foundation for the later explosion of automobility. But it’s also one that is presented in such a way as to glorify the object of the car and the often powerful people associated with bringing it into existence. Meanwhile, the expansion of car ownership is taken to be a natural development, with the opposition to its rollout and the extent of the actions by the auto industry and governments to force it onto the public downplayed in the interests of keeping the narrative simple: The car is freedom, and it proliferates because it is desired by the people.