4.33 (3 ratings by Goodreads)
Regular price €33.99
A01=John A. Heitmann
A01=Rebecca H. Morales
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_John A. Heitmann
Author_Rebecca H. Morales
auto
auto theft
automatic-update
Built environment
car culture
cartels
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JBCC
Category=JFC
Category=PDX
Category=WGCB
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
eq_society-politics
films and cars
gone in sixty seconds
Gran Torino
grand theft auto
history of auto theft
joyriders
Language_English
MD
Mexico
Organized crime
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch
theft

Product details

  • ISBN 9781421412979
  • Weight: 454g
  • Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 26 Jun 2014
  • Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock

10-20 Working Days
: On Backorder

Will Deliver When Available
: On Pre-Order or Reprinting

We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!

As early as 1910 Americans recognized that cars were easy to steal and, once stolen, hard to find, especially since cars looked much alike. Model styles and colors eventually changed, but so did the means of making a stolen car disappear. Though changing license plates and serial numbers remain basic procedure, thieves have created highly sophisticated networks to disassemble stolen vehicles, distribute the parts, and/or ship the altered cars out of the country. Stealing cars has become as technologically advanced as the cars themselves. John A. Heitmann and Rebecca H. Morales' study of automobile theft and culture examines a wide range of related topics that includes motives and methods, technological deterrents, place and space, institutional responses, international borders, and cultural reflections. Only recently have scholars begun to move their focus away from the creators and manufacturers of the automobile to its users. Stealing Cars illustrates the power of this approach, as it aims at developing a better understanding of the place of the automobile in the broad texture of American life. There are many who are fascinated by aspects of automobile history, but many more readers enjoy the topic of crime-motives, methods, escaping capture, and of course solving the crime and bringing criminals to justice. Stealing Cars brings together expertise from the history of technology and cultural history as well as city planning and transborder studies to produce a compelling and detailed work that raises questions concerning American priorities and values. Drawing on sources that include interviews, government documents, patents, sociological and psychological studies, magazines, monographs, scholarly periodicals, film, fiction, and digital gaming, Heitmann and Morales tell a story that highlights both human creativity and some of the paradoxes of American life.
John A. Heitmann is a professor of history at the University of Dayton, Ohio, and former Knapp Chair in the Liberal Arts at the University of San Diego. Rebecca H. Morales holds a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a former curator at the San Diego Automotive Museum.