The Speed of Change: Motor Vehicles and People in Africa, 1890-2000

In the early 1900s the motor-vehicle (car, bus, lorry or motor-cycle) was introduced in sub-Saharan Africa. Initially the plaything and symbol of colonial domination, the motor-vehicle transformed the economic and social life of the continent. Indeed, the motor-vehicle is arguably the single most important factor for change in Africa in the twentieth century. A factor for change that thus far has been neglected in research and literature. Yet its impact extends across the totality of human existence; from ecological devastation to economic advancement, from cultural transformation to political change, through to a myriad of other themes. This edited volume of eleven contributions by historians, anthropologists and social and political scientists explores aspects of the social history and anthropology of the motor-vehicle in Africa.