Car Country: An Environmental History

Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books

By: Christopher W. Wells

Narrated by: Scott Carrico

For most people in the United States, going almost anywhere begins with reaching for the car keys. This is true, Christopher Wells argues, because the United States is Car Country, a nation dominated by landscapes that are difficult, inconvenient, and often unsafe to navigate by those who are not sitting behind the wheel of a car.

The prevalence of car-dependent landscapes seems perfectly natural to us today, but it is, in fact, a relatively new historical development. In Car Country, Wells rejects the idea that the nation's automotive status quo can be explained as a simple byproduct of an ardent love affair with the automobile. Instead, he takes listeners on a tour of the evolving American landscape, charting the ways that transportation policies and land-use practices have combined to reshape nearly every element of the built environment around the easy movement of automobiles. Wells untangles the complicated relationships between automobiles and the environment, allowing listeners to see the everyday world in a completely new way. The result is a history that is essential for understanding American transportation and land-use issues today.

"An excellent and needed addition." (The Michigan Historical Review)

"Wells's book is a remarkable achievement." (Southern California Quarterly)

"Wells offers a terrific excavation of the sprawlscape that still drives our days." (Human Ecology)

©2012 University of Washington Press (P)2019 Redwood Audiobooks

Flesh it out a bit more

Author seemed wholly intent on spending every chapter then every proceeding one, recovering the same information. Whether it was regularly reiterating the same material every few pages or seemingly stepping back with the start of every new chapter, I decided 3hrs from finishing I had learned enough. It was as though the author felt obliged to make every chapter a full third longe than needed.