Search results for ""Author Christian Wolmar""
London Publishing Partnership Driverless Cars: On a Road to Nowhere?
Driverless cars are the future – just around the corner. That is what the tech giants, the auto industry and even the government want us to think. But closer inspection reveals that we are much further from that driverless utopia than we are led to believe by newspaper headlines and by the hype from firms with vested interests. In a post-Covid-19 economic environment motor manufacturers now face bigger problems. Christian Wolmar argues that autonomous cars are the wrong solution to the wrong problem. Even if the many technical difficulties that stand in the way of achieving a driverless future can be surmounted, autonomous cars are not the best way to address the problems of congestion and pollution caused by our long obsession with the private car. This entertaining polemic sets out the many technical, legal and moral problems that obstruct the path to a driverless future, and debunks many of the myths around that future's purported benefits.
£12.99
London Publishing Partnership Are Trams Socialist?: Why Britain Has No Transport Policy
We all use some form of transport almost every day of our lives. It is one of the most important factors in determining the economic wellbeing of a town or city. And it is also one of the major sources of environmental damage to our planet. Yet, Britain has never had a coherent transport policy. Transport ministers are regarded as insignificant compared with their colleagues in other ministries. Successive governments have failed to get to grips with the twin challenge of getting people around cheaply and safely while safeguarding the environment. In this entertaining polemic, Christian Wolmar, a former national newspaper journalist who has written about transport for over two decades, explains why politicians have never got to grips with the issue, sets out the problems this has caused and points to a few rational solutions.
£12.99
Atlantic Books Fire and Steam: How the Railways Transformed Britain
The opening of the pioneering Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830 marked the beginning of the railways' vital role in changing the face of Britain. Fire and Steam celebrates the vision and determination of the ambitious Victorian pioneers who developed this revolutionary transport system and the navvies who cut through the land to enable a country-wide network to emerge. From the early days of steam to electrification, via the railways' magnificent contribution in two world wars, the chequered history of British Rail, and the buoyant future of the train, Fire and Steam examines the social and economical importance of the railway and how it helped to form the Britain of today.
£14.99
Atlantic Books Engines of War: How Wars Were Won and Lost on the Railways
Engines of War tells the dramatic story of how the railways revolutionized the nature of warfare, ushering in an age of industrialized conflict in which wars were fought on a previously unimaginable scale. From the moment of its first appearance, the 'iron road' not only rendered armies more mobile, but also massively increased the power and the deadliness of the weaponry available to them. Christian Wolmar's epic account - of how an invention that brought prosperity in peace-time metamorphosed in time of war into a weapon of death - is counterpointed by a wealth of human stories of personal endeavour and private tragedy. Embracing every major conflict in which railways have played a part - the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the First and Second Boer Wars, the two World Wars, the Korean War and the Cold War, Engines of War is awe-inspiring tale of industrial might and the transformative power of machinery.
£20.00
Atlantic Books Blood, Iron and Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World
The birth of the railways and their rapid spread across the world triggered economic growth and social change on an unprecedented scale. From Panama to the Punjab, Tasmania to Turin, Blood, Iron and Gold describes the vision and determination of the pioneers who developed railways that would link cities that had hitherto been isolated, and would one day span continents. Christian Wolmar reveals how the rise of the train stimulating daring feats of engineering, architectural innovation and the rapid movement of people and goods around the world. He shows how cultures were enriched - and destroyed - by the unrelenting construction and how the railways played a vital role in civil conflict, as well as in two world wars.
£22.50
Penguin Books Ltd British Rail
The authoritative and fascinating history of the rise and fall of the state-owned British Rail'Wolmar's book is impeccably organised and makes a fast, enjoyable read' THE TIMES Literary Supplement________British Rail wasn't how we're asked to remember it . . .From ancient rolling stock to patchy service, stale sandwiches to the wrong kind of snow, British Rail - our last great state-owned organisation to be privatised - has received a terrible press.But after its controversial 1948 creation, British Rail was actually an innovative powerhouse that over five decades transformed the UK, creating one of the fastest regular rail services in the world.Award-winning journalist Christian Wolmar takes us from promise to punchline, exploring British Rail's birth into post-war austerity, the many battles and struggles to evolve what many considered to be a dinosaur, and how, at the height of its success, the service was misunderstood and unfairly maligned, ruthlessly broken up and privatised._______Praise for Christian Wolmar'Wolmar is the high priest of railway studies' Literary Review'The greatest expert on British trains' Guardian'Our most eminent transport journalist' Spectator'If the world's railways have a laureate, it is surely Christian Wolmar' Boston Globe 'Christian Wolmar is in love with the railways. He writes constantly and passionately about them. He is their wisest, most detailed historian and a constant prophet of their rebirth . . . if you love the hum of the wheels and of history, then Christian Wolmar is your man' Observer
£12.99
Atlantic Books The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground was Built and How it Changed the City Forever
Revised and updated edition of Christian Wolmar's classic history of the London Underground, with a new chapter on Crossrail.'I can think of few better ways to while away those elastic periods awaiting the arrival of the next eastbound Circle Line train than by reading [this book].' Tom Fort, Sunday TelegraphSince the Victorian era, London's Underground has played a vital role in the daily life of generations of Londoners. In The Subterranean Railway, Christian Wolmar celebrates the vision and determination of the nineteenth-century pioneers who made the world's first, and still the largest, underground passenger railway: one of the most impressive engineering achievements in history. From the early days of steam to electrification, via the Underground's contribution to twentieth-century industrial design and its role during two world wars, the story comes right up to the present with a new chapter on the sleek and futuristic Crossrail line. The Subterranean Railway reveals London's hidden wonder in all its glory and shows how the railway beneath the streets helped create the city we know today.
£11.09
Atlantic Books Railways and The Raj: How the Age of Steam Transformed India
India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, an Empire that needed a rail network to facilitate its exploitation and reflect its ambition. But, by building India's railways, Britain radically changed the nation and unwittingly planted the seed of independence. As Indians were made to travel in poor conditions and were barred from the better paid railway jobs a stirring of resentment and nationalist sentiment grew.The Indian Railways network remains one of the largest in the world, serving over 25 million passengers each day. In this expertly told history, Christian Wolmar reveals the full story, from the railway's beginnings to the present day, and examines the chequered role this institution has played in Indian history and the creation of today's modern state.
£12.99
Atlantic Books To the Edge of the World: The Story of the Trans-Siberian Railway
Christian Wolmar expertly tells the story of the Trans-Siberian railway from its conception and construction under Tsar Alexander III, to the northern extension ordered by Brezhnev and its current success as a vital artery. He also explores the crucial role the line played in both the Russian Civil War -Trotsky famously used an armoured carriage as his command post - and the Second World War, during which the railway saved the country from certain defeat. Like the author's previous railway histories, it focuses on the personalities, as well as the political and economic events, that lay behind one of the most extraordinary engineering triumphs of the nineteenth century.
£16.99
Atlantic Books The Great Railway Revolution: The Epic Story of the American Railroad
In The Great Railway Revolution, Christian Wolmar tells us the extraordinary one-hundred-and-eighty-year story of the rise, fall and ultimate shattering of the greatest of all American endeavours, of technological triumph and human tragedy, of visionary pioneers and venal and rapacious railway barons. He also argues that while America has largely disowned this heritage, now is the time to celebrate, reclaim and reinstate it. America was created by its railroads and the massive expansion of trade, industry and freedom of communication that they engendered came to be an integral part of the American dream itself.
£22.50
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Story of Crossrail
The story of an engineering marvel of the twenty-first century, from Britain's bestselling railway writer. Crossrail, first conceived just after the Second World War in the era of Attlee and Churchill, has cost more than £15bn and is expected to serve 200 million passengers annually. From Reading and Heathrow in the west, the Elizabeth line will extend to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east, including 42 kilometres of new tunnels dug under central London. The author sets out the complex and highly political reasons for Crossrail's lengthy gestation, tracing the troubled progress of the concept from the rejection of the first Crossrail bill in the 1990s through the tortuous parliamentary processes that led to the passing of the Crossrail Act of 2008. He also recounts in detail the construction of this astonishing new railway, describing how immense tunnel-boring machines cut through a subterranean world of rock and mud with unparalleled accuracy that ensured none of the buildings overhead were affected. A shrewdly incisive observer of postwar transport policy, Wolmar pays due credit to the remarkable achievement of Crossrail, while analysing in clear-eyed fashion the many setbacks it encountered en route to completion.
£18.00
Penguin Books Ltd British Rail
The authoritative and fascinating history of the rise and fall of the state-owned British Rail''Wolmar''s book is impeccably organized and makes a fast, enjoyable read'' THE TIMES Literary Supplement________You think you know British Rail. But you don''t know the whole story.From its creation after the Second World War, through its fifty-year lifetime, British Rail was an innovative powerhouse that transformed our transport system. Uniting disparate lines into a highly competent organisation - heralding ''The Age of the Train'' - and, for a time, providing one of the fastest regular rail services in the world.Born into post-war austerity, traumatised, impoverished and exploited by a hostile press, the state-owned railway was dismissed as a dinosaur unable to evolve, and swept away by a government hellbent on selling it off.Now, award-winning writer Christian Wolmar provides a new perspective on national l
£27.00