Driving Spaces

1. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4051-3072-1
Verlag: Wiley

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 466 g

Peter Merriman traces the social and cultural histories and geographies of driving spaces through an examination of the design, construction and use of England’s M1 motorway in the 1950s and 1960s.


- A first-of-its-kind academic study examining the production and consumption of the landscapes and spaces of a British motorway

- An interdisciplinary approach, engaging with theoretical and empirical work from sociology, history, cultural studies, anthropology and geography

- Contains 38 high quality illustrations

- Based on extensive, original archive work

Autoren/Hrsg.

Merriman, Peter

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures ix

Series Editors’ Preface xii

Acknowledgements xiii

1 Introduction: Driving Spaces 1

Mobilities 4

Driving, Space, Social Relations 6

Driving, Landscape, Visuality 12

Geographies of the Modern Road 16

Contents of the Book 20

2 Envisioning British Motorways 23

Motoring and the Motor-Car Way, 1896–1930 24

The German Autobahnen: The Politics and Aesthetics of a Nation’s Roads 31

Motorways for Britain? National Plans, National Defence 38

Motorways, War and Reconstruction 43

Motorways and the British Landscape 46

3 Designing and Landscaping the M1 60

Legislating and Campaigning: Towards a National Motorway Network 61

Locating the M1: Regional Planning, Local Protests and the Authority of the Engineer 67

Landscape Architecture and the Post-war, Modern Road 73

‘A New Look at the English Landscape’: Landscape Architecture, Movement and the Aesthetics of a Modern Motorway 83

Towards a Road Style: Service Areas in the Landscape 90

‘Cutting Holes in the Landscape’: Britain’s Motorway Signs 97

4 Constructing the M1 103

‘Operation Motorway’: Constructing the M1 Motorway 104
Song of a Road: Folk Song, Working-Class Culture and the Labour of a Motorway 124

5 Driving, Consuming and Governing the M 1 141

Motorway Driving, Embodiment, Competence 143

‘Motorway Madness’: Driving, Governing, Expertise 152

Motorway Modern: Consuming the M 1 162

Motorway Service Areas and the Motorist-Consumer 178

Assessing the M1’s Performance: Cost-Benefit Analysis, Scientific Experiments, Accidents 186

6 Motorways and Driving since the 1960s 200

The ‘M1 Corridor’ 202

Motorways and ‘the Environment’ 204

Dystopian and Marginal Landscapes? 208

Placeless Environments? 210

Placing the M1 in the Late Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 213

Appendix: Archival Sources 219
Notes 224
References 246
Index 285

Über Autor(innen)

Peter Merriman is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. His research focuses on mobility and social theory, spaces of driving, and cultures of landscapes in twentieth century Britain. His work has been published in a range of edited collections and international journals, including Journal of Historical Geography, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Cultural Geographies and Theory, Culture and Society.