L'Automobile autrefois

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 163 technology to the Asian-Pacific region the author credits Chinese traders and overseas emigrants as transmitters of such knowledge. After reading Daniels’s analysis of sugar industries in Chinese his­ tory, this reviewer still feels somewhat puzzled on one score: why did not rum-making, which is extremely profitable (as shown in the West Indies), ever appear in China? Nicholas Menzies derived his information on forestry from Chi­ nese literary sources on agriculture and arboriculture, and from lo­ cal gazetteers. His main argument is that the Chinese had a rather consistent approach to regulating the use of forest resources that fit the Chinese concept of ecological equilibrium. The author charts Chinese ways and means of harvesting, transporting, and measuring wood, as well as Chinese cosmology, which was closely related to their vision of the ecosystem. A serious deforestation problem occurred in the late 12th century as demand for iron rose and with it demand for charcoal. Menzies compares deforestation in China with the same phenomenon in Eu­ rope, suggesting that these events should be considered in ecologi­ cal context, as well as in socioeconomic and political institutional contexts. I agree with Menzies on this point in principle. However, demographic change in China, which has had a constant increase in population since the Ming-Ch’ing period, should be regarded as a condition of great pertinence to deforestation in China. Cho-yun Hsu Dr. Hsu is University Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. One of his several books is Han Agricultures (Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1980). L ’Automobile autrefois: Une difficile adoption. By Pierre-Lucien Pouzet. Lyons: Horvath, 1996. Pp. 143; illustrations. FF 130. This short book is a collection of anecdotes, mostly from France, illustrating public hostility to automobiles in the years up to 1914. The author has written a number of accounts ofautomobile history, including a book on the Rochet-Schneider company. M. Pouzet draws his tales largely from a dozen French automobile magazines of the period, along with a few books that deal with the early years of the industry. He organizes the stories in several categories: a) the unaesthetic appearance ofcars—that is, lacking horses to pull them, they seemed to be unfinished; b) hostile local governments, police, and magistrates; c) measures applied by small towns to impede or harrass motorists; d) the antagonism of some newspapers; e) the dislike or even hatred that some individuals expressed toward motor cars; and f) a few accounts of occurrences in other European coun­ tries and the United States. The book is filled with illustrations, mostly cartoons of the period, 164 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE amusingly depicting the confrontations ofauto drivers with animals, peasants, policemen,judges, and other enemies. Some of the stories are hardly credible, probably invented by clever journalists. One wonders about the complaint of some English farmers who alleged that dust raised by autos rushing by on country roads and settled on their fields dulled their scythes and sickles twice as fast as normal. Many of the yarns attributed to the French context are familiar to students of auto history elsewhere, such as the one about the Nor­ man resident who in 1899 invented an “articulated tree” that was hinged near its base and would be dropped on a motorist. M. Pouzet supplies better documentation for this story than any other, includ­ ing several photos from a magazine showing the tree and the wind­ lass used to raise it for another plunge. In the United States someone is supposed to have rigged a similar articulated tree on a road near Toledo. Unsurprising also are the accounts of farmers pushing dis­ eased cows and chickens onto the road to be dispatched by speeding cars or even throwing themselves under slower-moving vehicles in hopes of minor injury and reimbursement. Common causes such as the early autos’ surprising speed, dust, noise, and smell, along with antagonism of the poor toward wealthy drivers, brought similar results wherever the motor car appeared. This book is in no way scientific or scholarly; there is no effort at quantification; but it is useful for an hour or two of entertainment. It also reminds us

Archaeology · China · Context (archaeology) · Deforestation (computer science) · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Geography · Population · Sociology · Demography · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History