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    Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars
    Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars
    Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars
    Audiobook11 hours

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

    Written by Paul Ingrassia

    Narrated by Sean Runnette

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    About this audiobook

    America was made manifest by its cars. From the assembly lines of Henry Ford to the open roads of Route 66 and Jack Kerouac, America's history is a vehicular history-an idea brought brilliantly to life in this major work by the acclaimed author of Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster.One of the nation's most eloquent and impassioned car nuts, Paul Ingrassia offers a wondrous epic in fifteen automobiles, including the VW Beetle, the Chevy Corvair, Robert McNamara and Lee Iacocca's Mustang, the Pontiac GTO, Honda's Accord, the BMW 3 Series, and the Jeep, among others. Through them, the author shows us much more than the car's ability to exhibit the particularly American tension between the lure of freedom and the obligations of utility; he takes us through the rise of American manufacturing, the suburbanization of the country, the birth of the Hippy and the Yuppy, the emancipation of women, and so much more, including the car's unintended consequences: trial lawyers, energy crises, and pollution. Narrative history of the highest caliber, Engines of Change is an entirely edifying new way to look at the American story.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 1, 2012
    ISBN9781452677354
    Author

    Paul Ingrassia

    Paul Ingrassia, formerly the Detroit bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal and later the president of Dow Jones Newswire, is the deputy editor-in-chief of Reuters. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 (with Joseph B. White) for reporting on management crises at General Motors, he is the author of Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry’s Road from Glory to Disaster.

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    Reviews for Engines of Change

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    • 5/5
      Definitely well written and researched book. Would recommend going to the Henry Ford Museum after this and see many of the cars referenced in the book. Awesome knowledge for a Michigan car enthusiast and younger generation, like myself, to learn.
    • 5/5
      A good listen with lots of fun stories and interesting facts!
    • 3/5
      each chapter is a profile of an iconic car in the history of motors on wheels - great gift idea for car-loving friends
    • 4/5
      Steinbeck, in Cannery Row, said that there should be a definitive history of the American car, for it has become a definitive part of the American landscape as food, independence, and sex.

      Ingrassia identifies two major trends in American cars - the austerity, practicality, and efficiency which started with the Model T, and the flair and ostentation which started with LaSalle cars in the 1920s and continued through fins in the 1950s, muscle cars, and beyond. Power, allure, and prestige. Many cars today appeal to one or both of these two trends.

      Of course, the author starts with the Model T, but his choice of cars afterwords uniquely reflects the American century. LaSalles, jeeps, pickup trucks, the failed experiment of the Corvair, and the rise of foreign automakers, VW, Toyota, and Honda. The big titans of industry rise and fall. Some have fallen, and some have risen up twice or three times. The American cars of the 1960s and 1970s had some real duds, and the author dutifully includes them. Explosions, rust, and factory sabotage, and the industry's darkest hour.

      VW and the Japanese car makers became giants in order to fill the American market segment for cars which didn't explode. VW, of course, was once associated with Hitler's Kraft-durch-Freude compulsory relaxation scheme, but reinvented itself as the quirky and self-deprecating alternative to the fins and ostentation of the 1950s, and became a beloved icon.

      Of course this is not just about the manufacturers themselves. The cars themselves and their role in American society is reflected through personal testimony, song lyrics, and TV shows from Perry Mason to South Park.

      This was a lot of fun, and a good microhistory on a big subject.