Traffic

Paul Josephson is Professor of History at Colby College, USA. He is the author of twelve books, including Fish Sticks, Sports Bras, and Aluminum Cans (2015), The Conquest of the Russian Arctic (2014), Lenin’s Laureate: A Life in Communist Science (2010), Would Trotsky Wear a Bluetooth? Technological Utopianism Under Socialism (2009), and Motorized Obsession: Life, Liberty and the Small Bore Engine (2007).

• Introduction1. Mushrooms in Minsk2. Speed Bumps in Twentieth Century Philosophy3. Utopian Visions of Machines and People: A World Without Speed Bumps4. Mumford and Moses5. The Historical Concatenation of Congestion6. Speed Bumpology7. Crashworthy Automobiles as Speed Bumps8. Race, Equality and Traffic9. Pedestrian Malls as Large Scale Speed Bumps10. The Woonerf: The Neighborhood Speed Bump11. Taming Roads Themselves12. Curb Cuts for People, Roundabouts for Automobiles13. The Bicycle as a Neo-Luddite Traffic Solution14. Gendered Speed Bumps15. If Stopped in Traffic, Hope for a Crashworthy Automobile16. Safety Delays in the Name of Freedom17. Speed Bump Downsides18. Waxing and Waning of Brazilian Speed Bumps19. Potholes and Paper Money20. Speed Bumps for Other Hopeful TechnologiesNotesIndex

Traffic is both insightful and entertaining. Based on a range of sources, it provides us with a fuller understanding of the methods by which we might be able to control the negative effects of the automobile on our cities.