Introduction : explaining the car : prolegomena for a history of North-Atlantic automobilism -- pt. I. Emergence (1895-1918) -- 1. Racing, touring, tinkering : constructing the adventure machine (1895-1914/1917) -- First phase : emergence and roots of the petrol car (until 1902) -- Second phase : resistance against elite touring in heavy family cars (1902-1908) -- A first analysis of automotive adventure : the masculine "conquest of nature" -- Third phase : the "small capitalist" and the "average man" (1908 until the War) -- 2. How it feels to be run over : the grammar of early automobile adventure -- Driving and writing : analyzing affinities of touristic and artistic experiences -- Autopoetics : mainstream authors -- the "real unreality of things" : critical voices from the United Kingdom -- Colonialism by car : gendered travel writing -- Male violence and aggression : a French-Belgian group of writer-motorists -- Subliterary novels : the Williamsons and youth novels -- Flight forward : the Avant-Garde, silent movies, and the celebration of automotive violence -- Tarkington, Cather, and Dreiser : autopoetics before America's entry into the War -- 3. Driving on aggression : the First World War and the systems approach to the car -- Preparing for war : clubs, the military and aggression -- Preparing for war : organizing mobility -- Mobilization, immobility, remobilization : aggression, violence, and atrocities -- War trophies : the truck, logistics, and maintenance -- War trophies : Thanatourism and other adventures -- pt. II. Persistence (1918-1940) -- 4. "Why apologize for pleasure?" : consuming the car in boom and bust -- The car as commodity : its spread among the Atlantic middle class -- European car consumption and "Americanization" : eagerness compared -- The car as necessity : a profile of car use in the Interbellum -- Testing a different approach : migration, mass tourism, and the family car -- 5. Translation and transition : readjusting the technology and culture of middle-class family adventures -- Orchestrating car technology : constructing the closed automobile -- The process of prosthetization : mutually adjusting skills and technology -- Multiple adventures : thrills, skills, and risks -- 6. Redefining adventure : domesticated violence and the coldness of distance -- An Avant-Garde in autopoetic travel experience : the conquest of the "periphery" -- Domesticating adventure : the family as collective subject, and speed -- Flows and violence : urban culture and the middle-class family -- With or without a car : a women's adventure? -- The ubiquitous car : a spectrum of adventures, adjusted to middle-class taste -- The cult of cool : becoming cyborg -- Symbolisms and affinities : Avant-Garde and popular culture -- 7. Swarms into flows : the contested emergence of the automobile system -- Coping with car's unreliability : maintenance, repair, and the functional adventure -- Transnationalizing the local : planning and building national road networks -- Contested order : spatial planners versus engineers -- Rescuing automotive adventure : the construction of road safety -- The battle of the systems : road versus rail and the coordination crisisconclusionusin : transcendence and the automotive production of mobility -- Crossing borders : half a century of North-Atlantic automobilism -- Crossing boundaries : adventure, fiction, and the explanation of the car's persistence -- Some closing remarks on methodology and future research.
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