Why read On the Move?

Book cover of On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World

Book description

On the Move presents a rich history of one of the key concepts of modern life: mobility. Increasing mobility has been a constant throughout the modern era, evident in mass car ownership, plane travel, and the rise of the Internet. Typically, people have equated increasing mobility with increasing freedom. However,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked On the Move as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Sarah Fayen Scarlett

Author

Geographer Tim Cresswell’s work has helped me convince architectural historians that examining how we move through spaces is vital to understanding the full range of the built environment’s cultural meanings. He states the obvious: we all live in physical bodies. And yet historians emphasize the written word and architects emphasize visualization. What about the other senses? Cresswell argues that mobility is a socially-constructed movement much like place is a socially-constructed space. We can learn so much by paying attention to the ways society controls movement: Who is allowed to occupy which spaces? When? With whom? And how has that changed…

From Sarah's list on The best books about architecture and the visceral experience of social identity in industrial America.