On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World

On the Move presents a rich history of one of the key concepts of modern life: mobility. Increasing mobility has been a constant throughout the modern era, evident in mass car ownership, plane travel, and the rise of the Internet. Typically, people have equated increasing mobility with increasing freedom. However, as Cresswell shows, while mobility has certainly increased in modern times, attempts to control and restrict mobility are just as characteristic of modernity. Through a series of fascinating historical episodes Cresswell shows how mobility and its regulation have been central to the experience of modernity.

Tim Cresswell is Professor of Geography at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. A noted scholar, Cresswell has published three respected books thus far (with Minnesota, Reaktion and Blackwell), and On the Move has already garnered a glowing review from John Urry of the University of Lancaster. Urry stated that it will become a standard book in the field.