H-Sci-Med-Tech: New posted content
Dekker on Obst, 'Saving Ourselves from Big Car' [Review]
Obst, David. Saving Ourselves from Big Car. : Columbia University Press, 2025. Illustrations. 286 pp. $27.95 (cloth), ISBN 9780231210423.
Reviewed by
Henk-Jan Dekker (Bielefeld University)
Published on
H-Sci-Med-Tech (December, 2025)
Commissioned by
Penelope K. Hardy (University of Wisconsin-La Crosse)
Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=62383
“Big Car is not just an existential crisis facing humanity. It’s a living threat that kills hundreds of thousands of our species every year. It has done so for well over one hundred years, and this brutal carnage shows no sign of abating. If you think I’m just being dramatic, read on” (p. vii). This short preface sets the tone for much of what follows in David Obst’s Saving Ourselves from Big Car. The author has a background in journalism as among other roles the literary agent of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (of Watergate fame). His book reads as muckraking investigative journalism and came about after Obst had an epiphany being stuck in traffic and then decided to investigate the roots of America’s obsession with cars. The resulting book is a fast-paced trek through the past and present of American automobility in fourteen short chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion. It relies mostly on journalistic and a select number of academic sources, such as Peter Norton’s Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (2008) to familiarize a lay reader with the damage done by Big Car.
The book is organized neither chronologically nor thematically. Three chapters (1, 7, and 13) are devoted to the troublesome history of lead in car fuels. In these chapters, presumably split apart to create suspense, the villain in Obst’s narrative of sharply drawn battle lines is Robert Kehoe, a toxicologist and public health scholar who defended the safety of lead additives to gasoline, obfuscating their extreme toxicity on behalf of the Ethyl Corporation, a General Motors and Esso subsidiary. As chapters 7 and 13 show, Clair Patterson, a chemist at Caltech, tirelessly worked to show the dangers of lead contamination while being harassed by “Big Car.” It would last until the 1970s, when catalytic converters, which turn toxic gases into less harmful chemicals, became mandatory in cars in the United States.
The other chapters present various aspects of the Big Car complex. Chapter 2 identifies the various industries and economic interests forming the Big Car system, while chapters 3 and 4 provide a very brief history of the car, centered on the figures of Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan. Other chapters are devoted to a cursory history of road construction (chapter 5), the danger posed by distracting entertainment systems in cars (chapter 6), and short vignettes on the failed introductions of the Corvette Corvair and Ford Edsel (chapters 8 and 10). By far the longest chapter in the book is chapter 9, which forms the central indictment against the car, discussing the accidents and deaths caused by driving, the costs of congestion and parking, pollution, racism and sexism, and drunk driving.
After chapter 11, “Our Continued Love Affair with Big Car,” and a brief foray into road safety in chapter 12, the final chapter (14) turns to potential solutions. Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is heralded as an important concept that could save us from Big Car: The main idea of MaaS is to move beyond a single modality and offer a seamless intermodal experience, often through a single digital platform with integrated access to multiple mobility options in a city. Obst then takes the reader on a fast-paced and somewhat bewildering tour of places that have pioneered antidotes to Big Car. We travel (in this order) to West Palm Beach, Florida, where a car-free zone was instituted in the early 2000s; Dubai, which Obst (perhaps naively) praises as having grand plans for air taxis and hyperloops as solutions to car culture; Hong Kong (buses); Taipei (bike-sharing system YouBike); and Copenhagen (Jan Gehl’s livable neighborhoods). He closes with some more American examples: Tempe, Arizona (new car-free neighborhood); Salt Lake City, Utah (where the main innovation seems to be the retractable roof of a shopping mall); Chicago, Illinois (the Metra public transit system); and Portland, Oregon (bike culture). The MaaS concept only resurfaces in the final example, Helsinki, where Obst spent some time at the company MaaS Global, a visit that partly inspired him to write this book. He then ends the conclusion with the injunction to take these examples seriously, because “if we don’t end Big Car, Big Car will end us” (p. 240).
Saving Ourselves from Big Car is a fast read. The writing occasionally relies on casual phrasing that may not appeal to all readers but makes it highly accessible. The organization of the book is rather loose; as a result, historical episodes can be found throughout the book, and there is quite a bit of repetition. The reader might experience some frustration, not so much with the book’s claims, with which it is hard to disagree, as with the familiarity of the message. Indeed, as Obst notes about the failed Ford Edsel, which he describes as “a lasting tribute to Big Car’s total disregard for common sense,” so many of the points made seem obvious yet have failed to make much of an impact on the pervasive economic stranglehold that car companies have over American society (p. 178).
In conclusion, reading the book leaves one wondering slightly about its intended audience. Academics interested in mobility studies and history will likely not find much new material here. Transportation activists will not need to be convinced of its main claims, which leaves the American public, which Obst presumably wants to wake up to the deathly dangers of Big Car. Even so, while an exhaustive overview of the scholarship is clearly not Obst’s goal, the engagement with existing works could have been more comprehensive. To mention just one example, a well-received and not primarily academic book like Henry Grabar’s Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World (2023) fits well in Obst’s narrative but is not cited. Having said that, as Obst documents, all too many American drivers are unaware of the roots of the polluting, unsafe, and congested system they are a part of. For those drivers, this book might serve as a first introduction to the downsides of American car culture thanks to its succinct form and conversational style.
Citation:
Henk-Jan Dekker.
Review of
Obst, David.
Saving Ourselves from Big Car.
H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews.
December, 2025.
URL:
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=62383
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Hagley Research Seminar/December 17th/Noon EST via Zoom
Research Seminar: Ben Kletzer, Marshall University
“Full Steam Ahead for the First Five-Year Plan: How Technocrats Developed Railways and Transformed the Chinese Economy, 1952-1957.”
Virtual Event
Wednesday, December 17, 2025/Noon-1:30 P.M. EST
Registration via Eventbrite
In 1952-1957, the People’s Republic of China’s China National Railways operated based on a marriage of convenience between the pre-revolutionary railway technical intelligentsia and the Communist Party of China (CCP). The railway technical intelligentsia governed the new state-owned railways, working as managers and engineers. The CCP’s parallel political apparatus supervised the railway administration, checking railroaders’ power but also endowing them with funding and support. This arrangement allowed the party to assert limited control over the railways while benefiting from the work of experienced railroaders. I argue that the Chinese railway technical bureaucracy accepted the party’s power because the CCP offered funding and prioritization that allowed them to design the railway system of their dreams. Using knowledge acquired in the United States and the Soviet Union, these engineers built a safer, more efficient railway system. At the same time, overt politicization of the railways through mass campaigns disrupted these developments, foreshadowing the destructive Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).
Ben Kletzer is affiliated with the history department at Marshall University.
Philip Scranton of Rutgers University will provide an introductory comment.
Call for Letters-of-Intent: NEW Pediatric Humanities Section of the Journal of Pediatrics [Announcement]
The Journal of Pediatrics is now accepting letters-of-intent for its new Pediatric Humanities section.
Pediatric Humanities is a collaboration between the Journal of Pediatrics and the University of Rochester, the home of the biopsychosocial (BPS) approach to healthcare. The section invites short (up to 3,500 words and 50 references) historical, narrative, reflective, philosophical, policy-based, and/or ethnographic manuscripts that engage with pediatric health and healthcare. The editorial team for the section consists of Dr. Lainie Ross, M.D., Ph.D., Dr. Bryanna Moore, Ph.D., Dr. Alexander Parry, Ph.D., and Dr. Trisha Paul, M.D., M.F.A.
Interested parties should email Dr. Ross at Laini...@URMC.Rochester.edu for more information. Authors whose letters-of-intent are accepted will be asked to submit full manuscripts for peer review. An accepted letter-of-intent is not a guarantee of future publication. Contributions will be reviewed and published on a rolling basis.
Alexander Parry, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Health Humanities and Bioethics
University of Rochester Medical Center
Injury Studies Network Online Workshop (March 13-14, 2016) : Registration and Call for Abstracts [Announcement]
The Injury Studies Network is pleased to announce its first spring workshop in 2026! The event will cover the research methods, ethics, teaching, and outreach of injury studies and offer an opportunity for researchers at all levels to present their work and to connect with potential collaborators.
Please use the Google Form below to register for the event, which will take place over Zoom on Friday, March 13, and Saturday, March 14, from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time. We will follow up with the Zoom information and final schedule for the workshop in early 2026.
Workshop Registration Form: https://forms.gle/PxVLej1GaGFGdWYr9
If you would like to present a five-minute flash talk about an injury-related research, teaching, outreach, grant, or art project at the workshop, please use the registration form to submit an abstract. For questions about the workshop or the Injury Studies Network – or to be added to our mailing list – please email Dr. Alex Parry at alexand...@urmc.rochester.edu.
Alexander Parry, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Health Humanities and Bioethics
University of Rochester Medical Center
H-Net Job Guide Weekly Report for H-Sci-Med-Tech: 30 November - 7 December [Announcement]
The following jobs were posted to the H-Net Job Guide from 30 November to 7 December. These job postings are included here based on the categories selected by the network editors for H-Announce. See the H-Net job guide web site at https://www.h-net.org/jobs/ for more information. To contact the Job Guide, write to jobg...@mail.h-net.org or call +1-517-432-5134 between 9 AM and 5 PM US Eastern time.
History of Science, Medicine, and Technology
History of Science, Medicine, and Technology
Brown University - Mellon Postdoctoral Research Associate in the History of Computational Technology
https://networks.h-net.org/jobs/69559/brown-university-mellon-postdoctoral-research-associate-history-computational-technology
European University Institute - Chair in the History of Science
https://networks.h-net.org/jobs/69568/european-university-institute-chair-history-science
Idaho State University - Visiting Assistant Professor, History - College of Arts & Letters
https://networks.h-net.org/jobs/69573/idaho-state-university-visiting-assistant-professor-history-college-arts-letters
Wissenschaftliche:r Mitarbeiter:in (m/w/d) im Sonderforschungsbereichs 1482 »Humandifferenzierung« F01
https://networks.h-net.org/jobs/69574/wissenschaftlicher-mitarbeiterin-mwd-im-sonderforschungsbereichs-1482
Call +1-517-432-5134 between 9 am and 5 pm US Eastern time.
Call for Papers: Environment and Society in East-Central Europe Conference (ESIEE) University of Ostrava, Czechia [Announcement]
Czechia
Call for Papers: Environment and Society in East-Central Europe Conference (ESIEE), University of Ostrava, Czechia, 28-29 May 2026
The Environment and Society in East-Central Europe Conference 2026 invites scholars from history, environmental studies, sociology, geography, and related disciplines to explore how humans have shaped—and been shaped by—the environment in the East-Central European region. Does East-Central Europe have a distinguished environmental past? If so, how?
To answer these pressing questions, this conference provides a forum for interdisciplinary exchange, encourages collaboration, and fosters new approaches to understanding the historical and contemporary environmental challenges of the region.
The 2026 ESIEE Conference welcomes papers and panels addressing a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:
- Environmental change and resource use
- Urban and rural transformations
- Environmental activism and civil society
- Borders, cross-border regions, and environmental cooperation
- Rivers, floods, droughts, and water regimes in long-term perspective
- Forests, woodlands, and commons management
- Industrialization and the environment beyond pollution
- War, militarization, and ecological transformations
- Socialist environmentalism: concepts, actors, and strategies
- Technology and nature: envirotechnical systems in history
- Historical geography and environmental history interactions
- Environmental knowledge and the Enlightenment revolution in forestry
- “The State Against Nature”: governance and transformation in the 18th–19th centuries
- Narratives of “slow hope” in times of crisis
- Tracing the roots of East-Central European environmental history
- Environmental well-being in East-Central Europe
Keynote speakers: Stephen Brain, Mississippi State University, USA, and Doubravka Olšáková Charles University, Czechia
Submission Information:
Individual Papers: Submit your 300-word abstract and page-long bio by 31.1.2026 to cesh(at)osu(dot)cz
Complete Sessions, Workshops, and Interventions: Submit your 300-500 word session abstract with information on approach, goal, contributors’ role, and page-long bio by 31.1.2026 to cesh(at)osu(dot)cz
ESIEE 2026 is supported by the European Society for Environmental History, Slovak Historical Society, University of Ostrava, and the Department of History at the University of Ostrava
Hagley History Hangout Podcast – New Episode - Pennsylvania Merchants and American Ginseng in China, 1784-1840 with Audrey Ke Zhao [Announcement]
Hagley History Hangout Podcast – New Episode - Pennsylvania Merchants and American Ginseng in China, 1784-1840 with Audrey Ke Zhao
Tune in here or wherever you find podcasts: https://www.hagley.org/research/history-hangout-audrey-ke-zhao
Ginseng is the “emperor of plants,” celebrated in traditional Chinese medicine as a sovereign remedy for diverse ailments and promoter of longevity. The introduction of American ginseng to the Chinese market in the late-eighteenth century found a vast market of eager consumers.
In her dissertation project, Audrey Ke Zhao, PhD candidate at the University of California – Santa Cruz, is exploring the history of American ginseng in China. Using multiple collections held in the Hagley Library, such as the Lanman & Kemp drug company records, Zhao uncovers the development of an American export industry in ginseng with global connections and an orientation to the Chinese market. Ginseng imported through Canton challenged the imperial monopoly on the coveted commodity, triggering changes across the political economy of China.
In support of her work, Zhao received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.
To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our Eventbrite page.
Dr. Gregory A. Hargreaves
Assistant Director
Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society
Hagley Museum and Library
Current Research in Speculative Fiction Conference 2026 - Systems and Entanglement [Announcement]
United Kingdom
Current Research in Speculative Fiction 2026
16th Annual Conference
Systems and Entanglement
July 16th-17th 2026 University of Liverpool and Online
The 16th Annual CRSF conference on ‘Systems and Entanglement’ invites scholars and authors to explore the many intricate and co-constitutive relationships within speculative fiction. Moving beyond isolated analyses, this conference focuses on the complex networks that form the bedrock of speculative worlds. We will investigate how these systems entangle with characters, narratives and readers, and how this entanglement serves as a critical lens for understanding our own reality. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches that examine systems of power, agency and connection within speculative fiction. In embracing the theme of entanglement, we also encourage you to fully immerse yourselves and to become entangled with the alien ecosystems, alternate realities, paranormalities and profound futurities you might encounter out there.
We welcome papers on the theme of Systems and Entanglement from the fields of literary studies, creative writing, media studies, philosophy, art, anthropology, sociology, and political theory that speak to, but are not limited to:
- The oppressive or liberating structures of fictional societies;
- The non-human networks of mycelial networks, hive minds or cosmic horror;
- The blurred boundaries of consciousness in AI narratives;
- The way nature and culture inform each other in climate fiction;
- The interconnectedness, or disconnections, between reality and fiction in speculative fiction;
- The haunted house as a system;
- The entanglement between self and other in narratives on parasitism and symbiosis;
- How non-human actors, from AI to aliens, reshape narrative;
- How speculative texts use archives as systems that entangle with memory, power and history;
- How language can construct systems that directly entangle with and shape thought, perception and reality
By submitting, the author agrees that they have not used generative AI in their abstract or proposal.
Individual Papers:
Papers should be 15 minutes long and will be placed onto a panel of three speakers, with 30 minutes for questions at the end. You can present your paper either in person at the University of Liverpool, or online using a pre-recorded presentation, with live Zoom Q&A. Please submit an abstract (max. 250 words), and a short biographical note (max. 100 words) through the online form by March 23rd, 2026: https://forms.gle/iWJpemdELmW68u256
Panel Proposals:
Panel Proposals should include 3 previously determined speakers who relate together on a certain theme. Each speaker’s papers should be 15 minutes long, with 30 minutes for questions at the end. Papers can be presented both in-person and online, through a pre-recorded presentation, and panels can be hybrid.
Roundtable Proposals:
Roundtables are discussions on a particular theme, from individuals within the field, often with opposing views, research, or from diverse backgrounds. Roundtables are 1 hour long, and facilitated by a chair who will ask the questions of other participants. The chair should be the lead organiser for Roundtable Proposals. All submissions will be reviewed independently, so there is no guarantee that all abstracts in the roundtable proposal will be accepted. Note: Roundtables are NOT panels to present research in paper or presentation format. It is a more informal, ‘round the table’ discussion of a theme.
Workshop Proposals:
Workshops are led activities by solo or group organisers. The activity should only be 1 hour long, and be focused on practical involvement from the audience. Examples of workshops in CRSF past have been: creative writing prompt-based workshops, creative-writing discussion groups with writing activities and feedback, archive discussions, “How to” presentations and practical skills workshops, etc.
If you wish to propose a panel, a roundtable, or a workshop, please submit through the link below by February 16th, 2026: https://forms.gle/8iPbE5bjRDPyTT5H7
All queries can be directed to crsf...@gmail.com.
Sietse Hagen, Organiser: S.W....@liverpool.ac.uk
CRSF Team: crsf...@gmail.com
International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) Newsletter #225 (November 2025) - 53rd ICOHTEC Annual Meeting in Alexandroupolis (Greece), 8–11 October 2026 [Announcement]
Dear colleagues,
ICOHTEC Newsletter #225 (November 2025) is now available:
https://www.icohtec.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Icohtec_Newsletter_225_November-2025.pdf
This issue features updates from the association, recent publications, and calls and opportunities for our community.
Highlights include the 53rd ICOHTEC Annual Meeting in Alexandroupolis (Greece), 8–11 October 2026, with the Call for Papers deadline on 31 January 2026. Check out conference's website here:
https://icohtec2026.hs.duth.gr/
With kind regards,
Anna Batzeli
Newsletter Editor
Newsletter Editor: abat...@he.duth.gr
Official conference website: https://icohtec2026.hs.duth.gr
Email address: icoht...@gmail.com
Apply today for 
The 