Critical Geographies of Cycling History, Political Economy and Culture

Examining cycling from a range of geographical perspectives, this book uses historical and contemporary case studies to look at the history, politics, economy and culture of cycling. Pursuing a post-structural position in viewing understandings of the bicycle as contingent upon time and place, author Glen Norcliffe argues for the need for widespread processes such as gendered use of the bicycle, the Cyclists’ Rights Movement, and the globalization of bicycle-making to be interpreted in different ways in different settings. With this in mind, the essays in the book are divided into two sections: relational aspects are examined as Spaces of Cycling which treats technological development, innovation, and the location of production and trade of cycles, while Places of Cycling interprets specific sites of consumption - the streets of the city, in the cycling clubs, among men and women, and at the trade show. Written from a geographer’s integrative perspective to offer a broad understanding of cycling, this book will also be of interest to other social scientists in urban studies, cultural studies, technology and society, sociology, history and environmental planning.

Contents: Preface; For a geography of cycling. Part 1 Spaces of Cycling: G-COT: the geographical construction of technology; The Aha! myth: geographically embedded innovation in the Canadian cycle industry 1868-1900; Popeism and Fordism: examining the roots of mass production; Hypermobile global production networks: links of the Canadian cycle industry with China and Taiwan (co-authored with Weidong Liu and Boyang Gao). Part 2 Places of Cycling: Associations, modernity and club citizenship in a Victorian highwheel bicycle club; Men, women and the bicycle in the late nineteenth century (co-authored with Phillip Gordon Mackintosh); 'Thirty thousand wheelmen who never smile': national identity and the rise of the Canadian Wheelman's Association; Performing the bicycle trade show (co-authored with Michael Andreae and Jinn-yuh Hsu); Neoliberal mobility and its discontents: working tricycles in China's cities; Right to the road. Bibliography; Index.

Glen Norcliffe is Professor Emeritus of Geography and Senior Scholar at York University, Toronto, Canada.