Cars and Nations: Anglo-German Perspectives on Automobility between the World Wars  

Oleh:

Koshar, Rudy

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Theory, Culture & Society vol. 21 no. 4-5 (Okt. 2004), page 121–144.
Topik: Anglo-German relations; automotive cultures; automotive industries; Mercedes; national identity; nationality; Volkswagen
Fulltext: 121TCAS214-5.pdf (142.36KB)

Isi artikel

This article argues that historically specific, transnational structures and conjunctures influence the car's national belongingness. Neither historians nor sociologists have devoted sufficient attention to how the automobile mediates cultural processes in general and national identification in particular, the article maintains. Using a British motoring journalist's observations on the 1928 Berlin Auto Show, the discussion explores how the Mercedes worked as a symbol of German automotive tradition, a marker of international relations between Britain and Germany, and a spur to anxieties about the effects of mass production techniques and US automobility for both countries. The article then turns to small cars, demonstrating that the British observer's embrace of German and Continental small-car design belied longerterm anxieties about the level and nature of British automobility, while simultaneously mirroring German dissatisfactions and hopes regarding the potential for mass auto ownership in the form of the Volkswagen. If cars in some sense 'belong' to nations, the study concludes, then it is important to stress how the continuities and discontinuities that condition such belongingness often work across national borders in historically unique combinations.

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