Review by Choice Review
Parissien (writer/historian; director, Compton Verney [museum and art gallery], UK) begins this historical account with the origins of the car and ends with a final chapter on the future of the automobile. It is not, as claimed in the title, a "complete history." For example, the book does not deal with the most important component of the car, its engine, nor does it discuss the transmission, intake, exhaust, suspension, lubrication, etc. It also does not discuss many historical cars such as the Crosley, Henry J. Kaiser, LaSalle, various Packard and Studebaker models, Duesenberg, Tucker, and Nash (Rambler) in the US and Napier and Brazil Straker cars in the UK. However, the book is very good at what it actually is: a history of the major automobile entrepreneurs and the companies that they built within the context of the political and economic environments in which they operated. The author provides a good description and analysis of major players such as André Citroën, William Durant, Henry Ford, Ferdinand Porsche, Louis Renault, and Alfred Sloan. Overall, this is a well-written, interesting history of the car, painted in broad strokes. --Alvin M. Strauss, Vanderbilt University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
general motors was hemorrhaging cash and couldn't get any more loans to pay its debts. Finally, after a plea from the head of its Cadillac division, the company was thrown a financial lifeline, under the condition that it be controlled by a group of trustees. It was 1910. Eighteen other carmakers collapsed that year. But G.M., then a consortium of 25 brands, survived on the strength of its size and persuasive leadership. As with most commodities, the history of the automobile is cyclical, a story of near death and resurrection. Five years removed from the federal government's intervention, it's easy to mistake the bankruptcies of G.M. and Chrysler, the largest and smallest of the Detroit Three, as unique. But when it comes to cars, the past is a veritable merry-go-round of bailouts, consolidation and boom times. Each generation, it seems, falls prey to the same missteps. Steven Parissien's exhaustive, centurylong global overview, "The Life of the Automobile," lavishes careful attention on the drama, rivalries and infighting that have propelled the industry. Beginning with a description of the death of the irascible Henry Ford, who created both the world's first mass-market car and the first mass-production manufacturing system, Parissien, the director of the Compton Verney museum and gallery in Warwickshire, England, takes the reader on a mostly fascinating ride through the topsy-turvy makes, models and marques of yesteryear to explain how we've arrived where we are today. The book excels at revealing little -known lore about the titans who are commonly, but mistakenly, remembered as infallible geniuses. Take, for example, Ford's three attempts at automaking. The first was the Detroit Automobile Company, incorporated in 1899 and folded 14 months later. "Henry had simply never delivered to his new plant a finished car design; unable to adapt his obsessive working practices to industrial deadlines, he simply stopped coming into the factory," Parissien writes. "His employees saw less and less of him, and eventually found themselves out of work. It was not an auspicious start." Ford's second effort, established the following year as the Henry Ford Company, became Cadillac, eventually part of rival G.M., after his board ousted him. In 1903, a third try gained traction, growing into the Ford Motor Company, the Blue Oval we know today. Though the Model A, which was available only in red and achieved a top speed of 28 m.p.h., begat the industry's more familiar progeny, the distinction of creating the world's first gasoline-powered car goes to the German engineer Karl Benz. In 1885, in the back of a bicycle shop, he put together three wire wheels, a four -stroke engine, an electric coil ignition and a transmission consisting of two chains that connected the engine to the rear axle. The result was a contraption that traveled only slightly faster than walking, but the automotive revolution was underway. That same year and 60 miles away, Gottlieb Daimler created the first motorcycle, affixing a gas engine, designed by his partner Wilhelm Maybach, to a bicycle. But shortly after forming a public company to sell their engines, and just like Henry Ford across the Atlantic, Daimler and Maybach were forced out by what Parissien calls the "money men," the looming villains - or bankers - continually at odds with the creative talent. Told against the backdrop of the Ford family, unwavering in their longevity, Parissien's painstaking history can veer toward the plodding at times. Not every chapter of automotive history is equally enthralling, and the early anecdotes through to the industry's zenith in 1959 (the "annus mirabilis") are richer and more captivating than the later sections. We learn, for example, that the car birthed or fostered not only highways, motels, drive-through restaurants and drive-in movies, municipal parking garages and innovations in home architecture to accommodate the one-car garage, but also mail -order businesses, holidays, campgrounds, ski resorts and destinations like Vermont, which was "a quiet, remote backwater until the car and its highway came along." We follow the industry through its growth in the teens and 1920s (G.M.'s idea to refresh models annually to stimulate demand was an early boon to the industry), its Depression-era slump and its World War II shake -up, which created one of the most popular automobiles of all time, the General Purpose Vehicle, or G.P., later known as the Jeep. The postwar years altered the industry's makeup, carving up companies that were no longer viable. An adviser cautioned Henry Ford against acquiring then-struggling Volkswagen, which would be given to Ford of Britain free of charge, with a flippant "Mr. Ford, I don't think what we are being offered here is worth a damn." But in the late 1950s the automobile hit its stride as an indispensable accouterment of modem life, boosting excess in the form of tail fins, exaggerated grilles and panoramic windshields, and fueled by cheap gasoline, suburban growth and mounting demand. Parissien's encyclopedic knowledge is particularly satisfying when he is recounting the stories behind the most opulent brands. Mercedes (the Spanish word for "mercy") was the nickname of a daughter of the Jewish entrepreneur who helped Benz market the cars that eventually became the Nazis' vehicle of choice. There's Enzo Ferrari, a mechanic from humble beginnings in northern Italy and "an enthusiastic Fascist," who turned to selling cars to support his racing habit. And let's not forget the unlikely but historic pairing of the aristocratic Charles Rolls with F. H. Royce, a miller's son with only three years of schooling; together they built one of the world's foremost luxury marques. Still, such details do not always bring the industry to life. The chapters on the modern age, after 1959, meander, even if Parissien does make a case for the period's importance: The Toyota 2000GT, introduced in the 1967 Bond film "You Only Live Twice," put Japanese automakers on the map, and Ralph Nader ushered in an age of regulation. In 1981, Japan, known for its fuel-efficient compact cars, gained the mantle of the world's largest automobile producer, eliciting from Roger Smith, G.M.'s chief executive, the derisive barb that characterized the company's casual attitude for years to come: "What did the Japanese invent in cars?" And Smith went on: "The only thing I can think of is that little coin holder." But, as Parissien writes, he "stopped laughing when the Japanese manufacturers began making substantial inroads into G.M.'s market share." Now, post-bankruptcy and on the road to recovery, the Detroit Three have paid penance for their reckless acquisitions of the 1980s and '90s. A new chapter has begun, with an "Imported From Detroit" esprit vying against the world's automotive giants (even in the face of G.M.'s recent safety scandal). Meanwhile, Toyota has been humbled by a series of recalls, along with allegations that its cars suddenly and unintentionally accelerate, and Volkswagen is investing billions of dollars across the globe to fulfill its goal of becoming the world's largest automaker by 2018. It would serve today's leaders well to remember the heroes and villains behind the cars that boomed and busted in Parissien's cautionary tale. JACLYN TROP, a freelance writer, has written about the auto industry for The Times.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 3, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Little more than a four-wheel motorized bicycle when first invented in the 1880s, the automobile has come to shape our lives more than any other modern invention. It changed the way we fight wars and make love; enabled the flourishing of suburbia, malls, fast-food drive-ins, motels, and theme parks; and has become an extension of our personalities. Parissien's exhaustive overview of the evolution of the automobile follows the classic story of this backbone of industrialization with its successes, rivalries, declines, and resurrections that continue to this day. Although Germany, France, Great Britain, and Japan took turns at moving the industry forward, it was Detroit and the Big Three automakers that dominated in the golden age of the 1950s and '60s, when the vehicle briefly became an art form, with its polished chrome, fins, wings, and roaring, muscular engines. The real men behind names like Benz, Daimler, Rolls-Royce, Peugeot, Renault, Ford, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, and Olds are profiled. From the Ford Model T to the Chevrolet Volt, Parissien covers every detail, including the sketchy safety and environmental record and a nod to the future of green technology.--Siegfried, David Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This sweeping attempt to trace the development, dominance, and refiguring of the car offers some terrific glimpses at the vast and varied worldwide story of the automobile. Parisser, a versatile and enthusiastic English historian, offers entertaining vignettes of late-19th-century car pioneers, from German engineer Karl Benz and his first-ever long car trip from Mannheim to Pforzsheim and car maker Louis Renault. Parisser is at his best with encapsulated corporate histories of such automakers as Ford and Nissan. Along the way he offers devastating portraits of "out of touch" executives who oversaw the decline and fall of Detroit's Big Three car makers in the decades after the energy crises of the 1970s, when "cheap oil and motoring became a thing of the past." He highlights Roger Smith, the unlamented GM chairman from 1981 to 1990, whose tenure was marked by "business disasters compounded by appalling public relations blunders," as well as maverick John DeLorean, whose attempt to make luxury vehicles sank "from tragedy, to farce, to movie stardom" thanks to his eponymous vehicle's role in the Back to the Future movie franchise. Parisser is an enthusiastic writer, but his story gets mired with industrial insider references and descriptions of company mergers. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Parissien (director, Compton Verney House Trust, UK; George IV) explores the automobile from its beginnings in the late 19th century, through its 1920s and 1930s refinements, its classical period in the 1950s and 1960s, and on to the rocky decades after the international oil crisis, with global mergers and financial rescues in the 1990s and on through the start of this century. Readers meet the gifted but controversial car-makers Henry Ford, Karl Benz, Henry Royce, and Andre Citroen; designers Alec Issigonis, Andre Lefebvre, and Giovanni Michelotti; and managers William C. Durant, Alfred P. Sloan, and Lee Iacocca. Regarding the anti-Semitic Henry Ford, we learn that Hitler frequently cited him as an early inspiration, that sections of Mein Kampf were taken from Ford's writings, and that Hitler had a life-size portrait of Ford hanging in his Munich headquarters. Parissien frequently takes to task the poorly run British car industry in light of the dynamism of its continental European, Asian, and American counterparts. Overall, he looks less at automobile technology than at the industrialists and craftsmen whose genius has kept the industry rolling. He also highlights consumer trends, promotional gimmicks, environmental challenges, union unrest, and the motorcar's impact on social mobility. VERDICT This elegant and authoritative work demonstrates the historical links among people, machines, and cultures on a global scale. For readers who enjoy investigations into social, intellectual, business, technological, or transportation history-as well as dedicated car buffs.-John Carver -Edwards, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Cleveland (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A prominent British historian maps out the tricky, messy, world-changing history of the gas-powered automobile.In this straightforward history of cars, Parissien (Interiors: The Home Since 1700, 2008, etc.) begins by offering a concise origin story of the birth of the modern car and then launches into the oft-told tales of the slick behemoths who brought the product to the mainstream. "The men who were responsible for the creation and development of the global car industry were, for the most part, enthusiastic experts or fast-talking salesmenor, like Henry Ford, a bit of both," writes the author. "Many of the first auto pioneers were larger-than-life characters." In addition to Ford, Parissien looks at the men who are mostly known as brand names today, including the rakish Louis Chevrolet, the brilliant engineers Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler, and the French pioneer Armand Peugeot. Focusing on the characters involved in this great drama would have led to more inspired storytelling, but the historian in the author is far too ingrained. He pulls the focus way back to give an undemanding accounting of the industry's peaks and valleys and the resulting effects on the social structures of America, Europe and Asia. There are a few entertaining momentsParissien clearly understands the symbolism of the car as sex symboland there are nods to the cults of Volkswagen's Beetle and the Mini Cooper, as well as well-known iconography like Steve McQueen's Shelby Mustang in Bullitt, James Bond's Aston Martin, and the DeLorean DMC-12 and its prominence in the Back to the Future movies. However, the step-by-step narrative, pulled almost entirely from secondary sources, is a grind.An authoritative but dull chronicle of a colorful industry that leaches out most of the interesting parts of one of the world's great pastimes. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
