The bicycle : towards a global history / Paul Smethurst
Material type: TextPublication details: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire , New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, c2015.Description: xiii, 194 p. : ill ; 25 cmISBN:- 9781137499493
- 629.227/2
Item type | Current library | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
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REGULAR | University of Wollongong in Dubai Main Collection | 629.2272 SM BI (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | T0018756 |
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629.1346 KI AV Aviation maintenance management | 629.2220688 PA AU Auto brand : | 629.2272 PE AL It's all about the bike : | 629.2272 SM BI The bicycle : | 629.2310113 SC VE Vehicle dynamics : | 629.231092 GI OR Giorgetto Giugiaro : | 629.2459 WO SE Security engineering for vehicular IT systems : |
Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-186) and index.
"The modern bicycle as we know it today was developed in England in the 1880s. A decade later, cycling was already a popular spectator sport and a recreational fashion across western society. Women's rights, class mobility and a modern spirit of individualism helped fuel this bicycle boom. In China, on the other hand, the bicycle's ubiquity reflected state-controlled social uniformity. Briefly, it became a symbol of resistance in Tiananmen Square in the 1980s, but crushed by tanks it later turned into a downward marker of class with millions scrapped. In the 21st century, the bicycle is enjoying a global resurgence. It is favoured as a sustainable form of transport, while also reinventing itself as a chic and sportive fashion object, and a generic protest vehicle. With contradictory strands like these, the bicycle's cultural history is a rich subject for cross-cultural study. Beginning with the technical history of the bicycle's invention, and the socio-economic factors that precipitated it, the main focus of this book is the ever-changing cultural significance of the bicycle as an object, and of bicycling as a shifting, but ever popular social practice around the world. "--
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