| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 282 words from this article are provided below; about 552 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Comparative/World

Gijs Mom. The Electric Vehicle: Technology and Expectations in the Automobile Age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2005. Pp. xiii, 423. $54.95.

Gijs Mom has training as both engineer and historian, which, combined with mastery of French, German, English, and Dutch makes possible an in-depth international perspective. Mom only grudgingly accepts part of Thomas Hughes's systems approach and does not adopt "technological momentum" to explain the gasoline car's victory over the electric (see Hughes, Networks of Power [1983]). Mom insists that "the expectations, technology, organization, applications, and automobile culture of the two types of vehicle were and are entirely different" (p. 297) and argues that the triumph of the gasoline car was not inevitable but due to the cultural construction of these technologies. Indeed, in 1900 electric cars were more numerous and just as reliable, but cultural factors tipped the balance. Western culture valued quiet operation and low pollution levels less than individualism or the craze for speed inherited from cycling. Furthermore, "the dirty hands of the early motorist" seemed a "remedy against the decadence of comfort" (p. 40). There seemed "little sport in driving an electric carriage" compared to the dramatic and surging movement of the gasoline car, which almost seemed to have a nervous disposition. In Britain it was dubbed "the poor man's yacht." But there was also resistance to the autocar. Many Frenchmen considered it a "right wing machine" primarily owned by "anti-Dreyfusards," and in 1906 Woodrow Wilson declared: "Nothing has spread the socialistic feeling in this country more than the use of automobiles. To the countryman they are a picture of arrogance of wealth with all its independence and carelessness" (p. 44).

. . .

There are about 552 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.