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THE CAR: The Rise and Fall of the Machine That Made the Modern World
Author: Bryan Appleyard
Publisher: Pegasus
Pages: 319
Price: $28.95
Ear-shredding noise, toxic air, interminable traffic jams, chaos and death — all the result of untrammelled population expansion. Is this a description of a contemporary urban nightmare? Not quite: We’re talking about 19th-century London, although the situation in Paris and other major cities wasn’t much better. And the cause of all this misery was … the horse.
As recounted by Bryan Appleyard in his compelling new book, by 1900 the 50,000 horses required to meet London’s transportation needs deposited 500 tonnes of excrement
