Book Review: Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550–1800 by Margaret E. Schotte

Abstract

political and historical contextualisation, with a number of consequences. First, it tends to generate dauntingly long books and chapters, with Globalizing Automobilism coming in at 666 pages, and the largest chapters (1 and 3) coming in at just under 180 pages each. Second, constant contextualisation tends to break up the flow of the text, and whereas in some monographs this can occur in an introduction or scene-setting chapter, this is not easily done in such extensive multi-national or trans-national studies. The result is that I frequently lost the thread of the overall argument in Globalizing Automobilism, and the narrative frequently strays from automobility to discuss the context to particular topics. Third, comparative studies have a tendency to try and be exhaustive, covering every empirical angle, and yet at the same time they have to skim the surface, focussing on breadth at the expense of depth. In summary, proponents of comparative mobility histories – particularly automobility histories – will find Globalizing Automobilism very useful for understanding the role of the car in different societies in the twentieth century, and it provides an excellent companion to Mom’s earlier book Atlantic Automobilism. Unfortunately, due to the cost, I suspect that it is more likely to be ordered for libraries than by individual scholars, but you do get a lot of pages for your money.