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Carregando... On Roads: A Hidden Historyde Joe Moran
   Nenhum(a) Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro.   PeterKent2015 | Feb 14, 2016 |  mwbooks | Jan 22, 2016 |  ) harmen | Dec 8, 2014 | Using the advent of the first Motorway, built just after WWII, Moran introduces the concepts of planning, forecasting, logistics and politics of road building and attendant “Black Arts” of costing (and budget overruns of course), the necessary size, color and background of lettered signs to enable them to be read at safe distances at high speeds and the revolution of changing from roman capital lettering to computer generated sans serif signage. Quoting Betjeman and Paul Theroux the author lays out the story of development protests, tree-housing squatters and ‘tree huggers’, and early examples of ‘occupying’ by indignant local populations demonstrating against – and sometimes even for – the new road that they wanted built in somebody else’s backyard. A history of the palimpsest nature of roads, rarely truly ‘new’ in Britain’s cluttered history, from Romans through Napoleon to the “Iron Lady”, Margaret Thatcher and the series of beleaguered Ministers of Transport the human side of the road story is fascinating reading. John_Vaughan | Jul 2, 2012 |
His terrific book is an imaginative history, then: a study of roads "as cultural artefacts as much as concrete ones", which psychoanalyses post-war Britain through its road-network. Along the way he takes numerous turn-offs and diversions into subjects that really shouldn't be interesting, but which he makes fascinating: the development of the road atlas, for instance, or the history of the roadside verge. The battle between the "serifists" and the "sans-serifists" over the font-style of road-signs (the sans-serifists won, obviously), or the bizarre English affection for road-numbering (which gives rise to the social law that two Englishmen of middle age, meeting for the first time, will within 30 minutes be discussing the relative merits of nearby A-roads). Prêmios
In this history of roads and what they have meant to the people who have driven them, one of Britain's favourite cultural historians reveals how a relatively simple road system turned into a maze-like pattern of roundabouts, flyovers, and spaghetti junctions. Using a unique blend of travel writing, anthropology, history and social observation, he explores how Britain's roads have their roots in unexpected places, from Napoleon's role in the numbering system to the surprising origin of sat-nav. Full of quirky nuggets of history, such as the day trips organised to see the construction of the M1 and the 2.5m Mills and Boons used to build the M6 Toll Road, On Roads also celebrates innovators whose work we take for granted, such as the designers of the road sign system. On subjects ranging from speed limits to driving on the left, and the 'non-places where we stop to the unwritten laws of traffic jams, these hidden stories have never been told together, until now. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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 Google Books — Carregando...GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)388.10941Social sciences Commerce, Communications, Transportation Transportation RoadsClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia: (3.5)
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