Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-345) and index.
Contents:
Preface -- Prologue - Peking 10 June -- Hitting the road: birth of the automobile -- Paris - Peking 30 January - 9 June -- Hart and humiliation: China's troubled foreign relations -- Peking - Kalgan: 10-14 June -- Age of invention: a new era of communication -- Kalgan - Urga: 14-24 June -- The divided empire: Russia between revolutions -- Urga - Irkutsk: 23 June-1 July -- Separate spheres: women and the automobile -- Irkutsk - Tomsk: 1-11 July -- Horse power: before the automobile -- Tomsk - Tyumen: 11-19 July -- Taking up space: the battle for the streets -- Tyumen - Kazan: 19-24 July -- Transformers: cars, capitalism and change -- Moscow - Kaunas: 27 July-4 August -- The toll: automobiles and safety -- Kaunas - Liege: 4-8 August -- One the offensive: Automobiles in the first world war -- Liege - Paris: 8-10 August -- After the race -- Epilogue -- Acknowledgments -- Picture credits -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.
Summary:
"An Italian prince and his chauffeur, a French racing driver, a conman and various journalists battle over steep mountain ranges and across the arid vastness of the Gobi Desert. The contestants need teams of helpers to drag their primitive cars up narrow gorges, lift them over rough terrain and float them across rivers. Petrol is almost impossible to find, there are barely any roads, armed bandits and wolves lurk in the forests. Updates on their progress, sent by telegram, are eagerly devoured by millions in one of the first ever global news stories. Their destination: Paris. More than its many adventures, the Peking-to-Paris provided the impetus for profound change. The world of 1907 is poised between the old and the new: communist regimes will replace imperial ones in China and Russia; the telegraph is transforming modern communication and the car will soon displace the horse. In this book bestselling author Kassia St Clair traces the fascinating stories of two interlocking races - setting the derring-do (and sometimes cheating) of one of the world's first car races against the backdrop of a larger geopolitical and technological rush to the future, as the rivalry grows between countries and empires, building up to the cataclysmic event that changed everything - the First World War. The Race to the Future is the incredible true story of the quest against the odds that shaped the world we live in today"--Publisher's description.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.