High Performance: The Culture and Technology of Drag Racing, 1950-1990 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) - Tapa dura

Post, Robert C.

 
9780801846540: High Performance: The Culture and Technology of Drag Racing, 1950-1990 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)
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ISBN 10: 0801846544 ISBN 13: 9780801846540
Editorial: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994

Sinopsis

"Drag racing is an activity with a history so brief that people still around were there at the start", writes Post. "They can recall how it began as a hobby among young men infatuated with speed and power - "hot rodders", they were called. They have seen it become a compelling spectacle with a complex web of commercial relationships. And they have seen women impelled into mainstream roles to a degree far beyond what prevails in most similar activities".

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Críticas

"As Post deftly guides the reader through four densely packed decades and his own cogent and persuasive analysis, his relish for the subject matter is unabashed. What's more, his prose is vigorous and tidy, and his research... is not likely to be surpassed. Staking out a technological fringe area, High Performance offers a truly memorable scholar-enthusiast's view of the bond uniting human beings and the machines they build." -- John Wilkes, Technology Review



"[Post] delves into [his] topic intensely, skillfully elucidating its connections with other areas of study. The resulting performance is high indeed." -- Frederic D. Schwarz, American Heritage of Invention and Technology



"A junkie's confession for a culture addicted to speed and noise." -- Voice Literary Supplement

Reseña del editor

For those who love high drama and high-powered machinery, there is nothing to top big-time drag racing. High Performance is a dramatic, firsthand history of this daring sport, from the earliest "legal" drags run on rural airfields to the spectacular--and sometimes tragic--careers of drag racing's boldest innovators. Post, a former drag racer himself, has interviewed most of drag racing's legends and superstarssuch as "Pappy" Hart, who opened the first commercial strip in Santa Ana, California; Florida's "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, the first person to define himself as a professional drag racer; and Shirley Muldowney, who was nearly killed in a 250-MPH crash and returned to the cockpit two years later with the simple explanation, "It's what I do."

Post looks at all aspects of drag racing: the sport, the business, the means of personal affirmation. But most of all he explores it as an example of technological enthusiasm, tracking the innovations that permitted racers to disprove on pavement the "laws of physics" that experts had laid out on paper.

"By writing about the combination of talent and technology that make drag racing the most exciting sport in the world, Bob Post has finally given us the credit and credibility we deserve. This book has been a long time coming."--Shirley Muldowney

"All the roar and smell of rubber that one finds at drag races is present in this comprehensive study of the sport."--Ray Browne, Journal of Popular Culture

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Editorial
Johns Hopkins University Press
Año de publicación
1994
Idioma
Inglés
ISBN 10 
0801846544
ISBN 13 
9780801846540
Encuadernación
Tapa dura
Número de páginas
448
Contacto del fabricante
no disponible
Persona responsable
no disponible

Otras ediciones populares con el mismo título

9780801854644: High Performance: Culture and Technology of Drag Racing, 1950-90 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)

Edición Destacada

ISBN 10:  0801854644 ISBN 13:  9780801854644
Editorial: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996
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