Born to Be Wild: The Rise of the American Motorcyclist - Softcover

McBee, Randy D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1469652145 ISBN 13: 9781469652146

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr, 2019

Synopsis

In 1947, 4,000 motorcycle hobbyists converged on Hollister, California. As images of dissolute bikers graced the pages of newspapers and magazines, the three-day gathering sparked the growth of a new subculture while also touching off national alarm. In the years that followed, the stereotypical leather-clad biker emerged in the American consciousness as a menace to law-abiding motorists and small towns. Yet a few short decades later, the motorcyclist, once menacing, became mainstream. To understand this shift, Randy D. McBee narrates the evolution of motorcycle culture since World War II. Along the way he examines the rebelliousness of early riders of the 1940s and 1950s, riders' increasing connection to violence and the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s, the rich urban bikers of the 1990s and 2000s, and the factors that gave rise to a motorcycle rights movement. McBee's fascinating narrative of motorcycling's past and present reveals the biker as a crucial character in twentieth-century American life.

About this title

About the Author:

Randy D. McBee is associate professor of history at Texas Tech University.

Review:

Born to Be Wild offers the definitive history of motorcycling in post@–World War II America. Drawing on meticulous primary research with great nuance and depth, Randy McBee provides a compelling and valuable corrective to books and films that have exploited minor, salacious incidents sparked by a minority of motorcyclists. His book will be an indispensable resource for scholars of motorcycling. Given its sustained attention to the complexities of gender, race, class, and ethnicity, Born to Be Wild should also be required reading for historians, sociologists, transportation enthusiasts, and those simply curious about this transformative period in American culture.--Steven Alford and Suzanne Ferriss, authors of Motorcycle
This book is at once a social history of the motorcycle and a provocation for rethinking the political realignments of the second half of the twentieth century. A rich sense of contradiction and a deep understanding of how political struggle can inflect the same slogans and themes with widely divergent meanings together elevate this book beyond a useful and interesting study of a hobby into a profound rumination on the role of culture in political life.--George Lipsitz, University of California, Santa Barbara

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1469652145
• ISBN 13: 9781469652146
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 359