Longhurst, James (Professor of History)

Bike Battles: A History of Sharing the American Road Longhurst, James (Professor of History)

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.; Americans have been riding bikes for more than a century now. So why are most American cities still so ill-prepared to handle cyclists? James Longhurst, a historian and avid cyclist, tackles that question by tracing the contentious debates between American bike riders, motorists, and pedestrians over the shared road. Biographical Note: James Longhurst is associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and author of " Citizen Environmentalists."Commendation Quotes: "Bike Battles" is a thoroughly fascinating history of the competing claims and conflict between cyclists and motorists for space on our public roads. Spanning the fields of law, politics, public policy, and pop culture, "Bike Battles" is essential reading for everybody from cyclists, advocates, and lawyers, to urbanists, students, researchers, planners, and policy and decision-makers, and is destined to become a classic in the field. Commendation Quotes: "Bike Battles" offers a significant contribution to both the growing literature on the history of American bicycling and the immense, well-established literature on urban policymaking. It is scholarship written by a sophisticated historian who draws on sources ranging from the traditional to the wonderfully unusual in order to shed light on the changing history of bicycling's place in American cities. Commendation Quotes: "Bike Battles" is masterly in its treatment of public policy toward the 'roads as commons, ' and has given new depth to our understanding of cycling in America. I envy the light and easy style of the author. Commendation Quotes: James Longhurst gives us a whole range of new ways to look at those moments of confusion, uncertainty, and rage experienced by anyone who has spent much time on roads shared by cars and bicycles. "Bike Battles" is academically rigorous but easy and fun to read. This is really my kind of nerdiness. I recommend it for anyone who feels stuck in polarized conversations about how we use our roads. Commendation Quotes: James Longhurst documents the century-long story of a common, indeed ubiquitous device, the bicycle, which has never been satisfied to stay between the lines of modernist culture. First too fast, now too slow, once too elite, now too plebian, it has always been the square peg in the round hole of urban social order. The 'battle' in "Bike Battles" isn't between cars and bikes; it's between individuals and the infrastructure state. Publisher Marketing: Americans have been riding bikes for more than a century now. So why are most American cities still so ill-prepared to handle cyclists? James Longhurst, a historian and avid cyclist, tackles that question by tracing the contentious debates between American bike riders, motorists, and pedestrians over the shared road. "Bike Battles" explores the different ways that Americans have thought about the bicycle through popular songs, merit badge pamphlets, advertising, films, newspapers and sitcoms. Those associations shaped the actions of government and the courts when they intervened in bike policy through lawsuits, traffic control, road building, taxation, rationing, import tariffs, safety education and bike lanes from the 1870s to the 1970s. Today, cycling in American urban centers remains a challenge as city planners, political pundits, and residents continue to argue over bike lanes, bike-share programs, law enforcement, sustainability, and public safety. Combining fascinating new research from a wide range of sources with a true passion for the topic, Longhurst shows us that these battles are nothing new; in fact they're simply a continuation of the original battle over who is--and isn't--welcome on our roads.