Roadside Americans Audiobook By Jack Reid cover art

Roadside Americans

The Rise and Fall of Hitchhiking in a Changing Nation

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Roadside Americans

By: Jack Reid
Narrated by: Johnny Heller
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Between the Great Depression and the mid-1970s, hitchhikers were a common sight for motorists, as American service members, students, and adventurers sought out the romance of the road in droves. Beats, hippies, feminists, and civil rights and antiwar activists saw "thumb tripping" as a vehicle for liberation, living out the counterculture's rejection of traditional values.

Yet, by the time Ronald Reagan, a former hitchhiker himself, was in the White House, the youthful faces on the road chasing the ghost of Jack Kerouac were largely gone - along with sympathetic portrayals of the practice in state legislatures and the media.

In Roadside Americans, Jack Reid traces the rise and fall of hitchhiking, offering vivid accounts of life on the road and how the act of soliciting rides from strangers, and the attitude toward hitchhikers in American society, evolved over time in sync with broader economic, political, and cultural shifts. In doing so, Reid offers insight into significant changes in the United States amid the decline of liberalism and the rise of the Reagan Era.

©2020 The University of North Carolina Press (P)2020 Tantor Americas North America Popular Culture Social Sciences United States Liberalism Socialism Capitalism Social justice
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This book could have easily been half as long. The same themes repeat over and over.

Interesting but very repetitive

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Was curious how hitchhiking became illegal and this answered my question. I was very pleased.

Answer to my curiosity

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I had hitchhiked from Miami to San Francisco and back in the early 70’s as a 19-year old. I know the times have changed tremendously since then. Reid’s book helps put that change in perspective using the history of American hitchhiking to illustrate it. Additionally, based on my personal experience, what he describes is accurate.

My criticism is with whoever chose the illustration for the audible book of the young, leggy, female hitchhiker. If you read this interesting and relevant book, you’ll know how incongruous it is.

Good book. Bad marketing.

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