Landscapes without the car: a counterfactual historical geography of twentieth-century Britain

Despite increased concern about environmental damage and resource depletion, the private motor car, and associated automobility, are taken-for-granted aspects of twenty-first-century life. This paper makes the counterfactual assumption that private ownership of cars was severely restricted at the start of the twentieth century, and uses a range of historical data to examine the ways in which such a scenario might have impacted on transport infrastructure, personal mobility and urban life. It is argued that, even without the wholesale adoption of the motor car as a means of personal transport, patterns of everyday mobility would not have differed significantly from today so long as other forms of transport had remained or expanded to cope with this demand. However, such a scenario would probably have required journeys to be planned in different ways, may have been qualitatively different from travel today, and could have disadvantaged particular groups of the population, including some women. A landscape without cars would probably also have altered the form of cities, with services provided closer to where people live, and levels of air pollution substantially lower. The counterfactual historical analysis is used to argue that, although there is little likelihood of cars being banned in Britain, greater restrictions on private motor vehicles would not necessarily lead to the fundamental changes in everyday mobility that some might predict.     

Publications briefly noted

PETER DRYSDALE, ZHANG YUNLING and LIGANG SONG (eds). APEC and Liberalisation of the Chinese Economy.

PAUL BAILEY. China in the Twentieth Century , 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. Maps, glossary, bibliography, index. £50.00/US$59.95 hardcover, £13.99/US$26.95, paper.

JAMES L. WATSON (ed). Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997. 256 pp. US$21.95, paper.

ALISON MURRAY. Pink Fits: sex, Subcultures and Discourses in the Asia‐Pacific. Clayton, VIC: Monash Asia Institute, 2001. 198 pp. A$29.95, paper.     

Book reviews

Serviços e Desenvolvimento numa Região em Mudança (Services and Development in a Changing Region). Comissão de Coordenação da Região Centro (Ed.), Coimbra, Comissão de Coordmação da Região Centro, 1993, 443 pp, ISBN 972 659 040 0.

Technology Transfer in Europe. David Charles and Jeremy Howells, London, Belhaven Press, 1992, 256 pp., £35.00, ISBN 1 85293 160 4.

Technology and Economic Development. The Dynamics of Local, Regional and National Change. E. J. Malecki, Harlow, Longman Scientific & Technical; New York, John Wiley, 1991, 495 pp., ISBN 0 470 21723 5.

The Rise of Meso Government in Europe. L. J. Sharpe (Ed.), London, Sage Publications, 1993, 327 pp., £45.00, ISBN 0 8039 8776 5.

British Urban Policy and the Urban Development Corporation. Rob Imrie and Huw Thomas (Eds), London, Paul Chapman, 1993, 216 pp., £15.50 pb, ISBN 1 85396 207 4.     

Reviews

Howard R. Penniman (ed.) Australia at the Polls: The National Elections of 1980 and 1983, Washington, DC, George Allen and Unwin for American Enterprise Institute, 1983, pp.351. $14.95 (paper)

Alexander Kouzmin (ed.) Public Sector Administration: New Perspectives, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1983. pp.329. $15.95

Blanche D'Alpuget, Robert J Hawke: A Biography, Schwartz, 1982, pp.418. $19.95

Frank Cain, The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia, Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1983, pp. 306. $24.95

Leonie Sandercock and Michael Berry, Urban Political Economy: The Australian Case, Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1983, pp.193. $22.50, $4.50 (paper)

Brian W. Head (ed.), State and Economy in Australia, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, pp. 305. $25.00, $12.99 (paper)

Bruce O'Meagher (ed.) The Socialist Objective: Labor and Socialism, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger 1983, pp. 198, $24.95, $11.95 (paper) and John Reeves and Kelvin Thomson (eds) Labor Essays 1983: Policies and Programs for the Labor Government, Blackburn, Drummond 1983, pp. 197. $12.95 (paper)

James Jupp, Ethnic Politics in Australia, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1984, pp.213. $22.95, $11.95 (paper)

Archives Guide to Collections, Melbourne, Archives Board of Management University of Melbourne, 1983, pp.210. $18.00, $9.50 (paper)

Nancy Viviani, The Long Journey: Vietnamese Migration and Settlement in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1984, pp.316. $26.60

Christopher Cunneen: Kings’ Men: Australia's Governors‐General from Hopetoun to Isaacs. Sydney, George Allen & Unwin Australia, 1983, pp. 237. $24.95, $12.95 (paper)

Dennis Phillips, Cold War Two and Australia, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1983. pp.122. $15.95, $6.95 (paper)

Harry Redner and Jill Redner, Anatomy of the World: The Impact of the Atom on Australia and the World, Melbourne, Fontana/Collins, 1983, pp. 368. $8.95 (paper)

David McKay, American Politics and Society, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp. 336. $55.00, $18.95 (paper)

David Martin and Peter Mullen (eds) Unholy Warfare: The Church and the Bomb. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1983, pp.247. $34.95, $13.95 (paper)

Barry Gustafson, Labour's Path to Political Independence — The Origins and Establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party 1900–19, Auckland, Auckland University Press/Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 199. $18.50

Christopher T. Husbands, Racial Exclusion and the City: The Urban Support of the National Front, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1983, pp.191. $49.50

Charles F. Sabel, Work and Politics: The Division of Labor in Industry, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 304. $45.50

David Coates and Gordon Johnston (eds) Socialist Strategies, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp.294. $49.50, $16.50 (paper)

R.J. Moore, Escape from Empire: the Attlee Government and the Indian Problem, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983, pp. 376. $48.75

T.H. Rigby & Bohdan Harasymiw (eds) Leadership Selection and Patron‐Client Relations in the USSR and Yugoslavia, London, Macmillan. 1983, pp.246. £20

Theodore H. Friedgut, Political Participation in the USSR, Princeton, Princeton U.P., 1979, pp.353. $16.25 (paper)

Mervyn Matthews, Education in the Soviet Union: Policies and Institutions Since Stalin, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1982, pp.225. $15.95 (paper)

Ronan Paddison, The Fragmented State: The Political Geography of Power, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983, pp. 315. $54.00, $21.95 (paper)

William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1982, pp. 405. $39.95

David Held and others (eds) States and Societies, Oxford, Martin Robertson and the Open University, 1983, pp.629. $16.50 (paper)

Andrew Linklater, Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations, London, Macmillan/London School of Economics and Political Science, 1982, pp. 232. $36.00

Celso Furtado, Accumulation and Development: The Logic of Industrial Civilization, trans, by S. Macedo, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp.201. $39.95

Irving Louis Allen, The Language of Ethnic Conflict, Social Organization and Lexical Culture, New York, Columbia University Press, 1983, pp.162. US$12.50

Stephen P. Dunn, The Fall and Rise of the Asiatic Mode of Production, London, Routeledge and Kegan Paul, pp.124.

Preston King (ed.) The History of Ideas, An Introduction to Method, London & Canberra, Croom Helm, 1983, pp. 334. $16.50 (paper)

Howard Williams, Kant's Political Philosophy. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983, pp. 292. £20

Gerard Bekerman, Marx and Engels: A Conceptual Concordance, Oxford, Blackwell, 1983, pp.205. $62

Nicholas Abercrombie and John Urry, Capital, Labour and the Middle Classes, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1983, pp. 169, $29.95, $13.95. (paper)

Rob Steven, Classes in Contemporary Japan, London, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 357. $45.50

R.W. Connell, Which Way Is Up? Essays on Sex, Class and Culture, Sydney, George Allen and Un‐win, 1983, pp.278. $19.95, $9.95 (paper)

Hester Eisenstein, Contemporary Feminist Thought Sydney, Unwin Paperbacks, 1984, pp 196. $16.95, $7.95

Bettina Cass et al. Why So Few? Women Academics in Australian Universities Sydney University Press, 1983, pp.253. $14.00

Jocelynne Scutt Even in the Best of Homes: Violence in the Family, Melbourne, Penguin, 1983, pp.303. $9.95     

Rumour and politics

This article contends that rumour—the circulation of unverified information —is an important form of political communication which deserves more attention from political scientists. To illustrate this claim a study is made of the part played by rumour in the ‘destabilisation’ of Malcolm Fraser's position as leader of the Liberal Party in August to October 1981. Health is a natural subject of rumour, and rumours about Mr. Fraser's health were used as the basis for speculation about a possible leadership challenge by Mr. Andrew Peacock. The collective character of parliamentary party politics, the artificial nature of media ‘facts’ and the predominance of certain types of news value in the media all encourage such rumours to flourish. The rumours had the effect of destabilising Mr. Fraser's position by creating and then enlarging a climate of uncertainty and anxiety within the Liberal Party and the electorate. Mr. Peacock was thereby enabled to test the strength of his potential support without being obliged to risk an open challenge. The author concludes that the most apt model of rumour to this case is that of ‘milling’, on the analogy of a ‘milling crowd’.