This is the story of how the automobile changed the essence of life in America. Both a general history of the automobile and a broad-ranging analysis of its cultural effects, the text addresses such topics as cars' inception as a mechanical curiosity and later a plaything for the well-to-do; Henry Ford and the rise of the machine age; competition and the evolving consumer in the 1920s; the development of roads and the accompanying road culture; religion, gender, courtship and sex; effects of the Great Depression and World War II; the 1950s golden age of automobiles and the emergence of youth culture; and how American car culture has been represented in film, song, poetry and literature.