The Automobile Revolution: The Impact of an Industry

This book is quite a remarkable achievement. It is the first scholarly work that attempts to survey the history of the automobile industry on a worldwide scale. It was initially published in France and it has four authors, Jean-Pierre Bardou, Jean-Jacques Chanaron, Patrick Fridenson, and James M. Laux (editor). Yet the text goes along coherently, with none of the troubles that frequently accompany multiple authorship. To write the history of the world motor-vehicle industry this comprehensively in three hundred pages of text was an ambitious undertaking, and the authors are to be complimented on the success they have achieved. Under the circumstances a certain amount of superficiality was unavoidable, but there is far less than might have been expected. The treatment of the American automobile industry follows conventional patterns for the most part, except that it brings the record up to date, carrying it to 1981. The most useful part of the volume for American readers will be the wealth of information on the growth of the motor-vehicle industries of Europe, including the communist countries. There is also interesting material on the Japanese and Canadian automobile industries and on the growth of automobile manufacturing in recent years in other parts of the world. There are some intriguing insights and suggestions. For example, the authors advance the thesis that because of negligible tariffs European manufacturers in the early days of the industry were not as handicapped by limited markets as has generally been supposed; the primary advantage that the United States had was higher per capita income. They refer to the impact of the automobile on highway construction and make the point, as others have done, that the German autobahns were built for civil rather than military reasons to stimulate the economy and encourage motor-vehicle production. Although the book is subtitled "The Impact of an Industry" and wisely focuses on the economic consequences of motor-vehicle manufacturing, the authors give some consideration to the social and political problems that have grown up around the automobile. They have done so with a balance that is unfortunately all too rare in discussions of these issues. For this subject the two final chapters, "The Automobile Under Fire" and "General Conclusions" are well worth reading. The authors weave their way skillfully and dispassionately through the issues of air pollution, traffic congestion, highway safety, and energy conservation. Some of their observations are worth quoting: "The automobile has attracted blame for some of the frustrations and dissatisfactions of consumer society, and for which it has become the concrete symbol"; "consumers are far from prepared to give up the automobile or even to restrict their use of it"; and, as a fitting conclusion, "the automobile today is the victim of its own success—actually, the automobile is not the true focus of the com- plaints that are directed toward it; they really aim at certain public policies".