Books in the Explorations in Mobility series

Unsustainable practices since the Industrial Revolution still impact our everyday lives. This book looks at how we can achieve sustainable urban mobility now and in the future by tapping into our knowledge of the historical trajectories leading up to the features of modern mobility in cities today.

During the high days of modernization fever, among the many disorienting changes Germans experienced in the Weimar Republic was an unprecedented mingling of consumption and identity: increasingly, what one bought signaled who one was. Exemplary of this volatile dynamic was the era's burgeoning motorcycle culture. With automobiles largely a luxury of the upper classes, motorcycles complexly symbolized masculinity and freedom, embodying a widespread desire to embrace progress as well as profound anxieties over the course of social transformation. Through its richly textured account of the motorcycle as both icon and commodity, The Devil's Wheels teases out the intricacies of gender and class in the Weimar years.