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Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation |  |
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Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation | |
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Garbology explores the hidden and costly wonders of our buy-it-now, get-it-today world of transportation, revealing the surprising truths, mounting challenges, and logistical magic behind every trip we take and every click we make.
Transportation dominates our daily existence. Thousands, even millions, of miles are embedded in everything we do and touch. We live in a door-to-door universe that works so well most Americans are scarcely aware of it. The grand ballet in which we move ourselves and our stuff is equivalent to building the Great Pyramid, the Hoover Dam, and the Empire State Building all in a day. Every day. And yet, in the one highly visible part of the transportation world—the part we drive—we suffer grinding commutes, a violent death every fifteen minutes, a dire injury every twelve seconds, and crumbling infrastructure.
Now, the way we move ourselves and our stuff is on the brink of great change, as a new mobility revolution upends the car culture that, for better and worse, built modern America. This unfolding revolution will disrupt lives and global trade, transforming our commutes, our vehicles, our cities, our jobs, and every aspect of culture, commerce, and the environment. We are, quite literally, at a fork in the road, though whether it will lead us to Carmageddon or Carmaheaven has yet to be determined.
Using interviews, data and deep exploration of the hidden world of ports, traffic control centers, and the research labs defining our transportation future, acclaimed journalist Edward Humes breaks down the complex movements of humans, goods, and machines as never before, from increasingly car-less citizens to the distance UPS goes to deliver a leopard-printed phone case. Tracking one day in the life of his family in Southern California, Humes uses their commutes, traffic jams, grocery stops, and online shopping excursions as a springboard to explore the paradoxes and challenges inherent in our system. He ultimately makes clear that transportation is one of the few big things we can change—our personal choices do have a profound impact, and that fork in the road is coming up fast.
Door to Door is a fascinating detective story, investigating the worldwide cast of supporting characters and technologies that have enabled us to move from here to there—past, present, and future.
媒体推荐“Like “Silent Spring” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” “Door to Door” is a rallying point for culturewide change. Hume’s tireless curation of figure and fact, his well-reasoned arguments and his uncluttered, well-ordered prose may turn the ship that’s just begun to budge.” (Mary Roach, the New York Times Book Review)
“So much effort goes to moving our bodies and our stuff around. And as this book makes very clear, it could be done so much better! A fascinating read, from the center of the world’s car culture” (Bill McKibben, author Deep Economy)
“In this groundbreaking work, Ed Humes shows that we could have fast, reliable and incredibly safe transport, if we only had the political guts to choose it. Hopefully, this fascinating work will prompt long overdue changes. ” (Samuel Fromartz, editor in chief of the Food & Environment Reporting Network, and author of the award-winning In Search of the Perfect Loaf.)
“Humes takes us inside the mammoth transportation systems that move things, and move us, around. Door to Door is an eye-opening account of the massive physical systems that support our increasingly digital world.” (Richard Florida, author of the Rise of the Creative Class, University of Toronto & NYU professor)
“This timely book will inspire many readers to change their habits and their views of the future.” (Booklist)
Edward Humes is the author of ten critically acclaimed nonfiction books, including Eco Barons, Monkey Girl, Over Here, School of Dreams, Baby E.R., Mean Justice, No Matter How Loud I Shout, and the bestseller Mississippi Mud. He has received the Pulitzer Prize for his journalism and numerous awards for his books. He has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, and Sierra. He lives in California.
网友对Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation的评论
Some of this book is a fascinating and educational analysis of the global logistics system. These parts are great.
But, unfortunately, much of this book is a repetitive, droning diatribe about the evils of automobiles. I get it; the author hates automobiles. It doesn't matter whether a given reader loves or hates automobiles, the author's repetitive diatribe gets old and starts to wear on you. The author makes the same point using the same data and same examples again and again and again and again and again and then he makes it some more. Had an editor restricted the author to making the same point no more than -- oh, say -- three times in a row, this book would have been cut in half. The author beats the dead horse that is his hatred of cars again and again until there is just nothing left but a fine paste.
I understand that American cars are part of global logistics. A book about global logistics has to say some things about cars. But American cars are a small part of global logistics. The author himself says this when he very cleverly and interestingly explains the global logistics necessary to being a package of coffee beans to his local Costco and calculates in detail the number of miles the various components of that package of coffee travel by trains, planes, ships, and trucks, and then adds on eleven more miles by car to get from that retail store to his home kitchen.
I had hoped, when I bought this book, to learn more about that amazing global logistics system. I'm happy to also learn some facts about American cars and American roads; as an engineer, I think that some of his claims are wrong, but I am willing to consider them. I was just not expecting to have that pounded into me again and again. I wish the author would have spend more of that effort on global logistics.
If you are looking for a moral polemic against the modern transportation and logistics systems, this might be your book. If however, you are more interested in an objective history/analysis, as I was, you will be disappointed. Some interesting parts, but very uneven, often bogs down in tedious litanies of statistics, some nonsensical, a slapdash feel to parts of the book, and overall way too much moralizing for me.
This book is essential reading for Americans and very interesting to anyone wanting to know what goes into the movement of goods. We should know how much distance and therefore energy are involved in delivering the merchandise to our doors and stores. Our infrastructure, including ports, is crumbling which threatens the convenience of online shopping and delivery, but so much more important is the effect on the environment of all the fuel spent on bringing us all the products we so love. This is a highly researched book.
Our personal, private transportation killed 40,000 people 2015 in the US, up from 35,000 in 2014, mostly due to human error: fatigue, distraction and substance abuse. Humes makes a strong case for the driverless car which, it is thought, will become a safer system. Everyone has many questions about that, especially for the transition years, but surely we are all bored and frustrated spending so much of our lives in these enclosed machines bumper to bumper if we have nothing else to do but drive. Just let me check that text and then bam, it's too late. Speed kills especially if the eyes are off the road.
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