Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike, Second Edition


Book Description

A twelve-lane behemoth cutting through the least scenic parts of the Garden State, the New Jersey Turnpike may lack the romantic allure of highways like Route 66, but it might just be a more accurate symbol of American life, representing the nation at both its best and its worst. When Angus Gillespie and Michael Rockland wrote Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1989, they simply wanted to express their fascination with a road that many commuters regarded with annoyance or indifference. Little did they expect that it would be hailed as a classic, listed by the state library alongside works by Whitman and Fitzgerald as one of the ten best books ever written about New Jersey or by a New Jerseyan. Now Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike is back in a special updated and expanded edition, examining how this great American motorway has changed over the past thirty-five years. You’ll learn how the turnpike has become an icon inspiring singers and poets. And you’ll meet the many people it has affected, including the homeowners displaced by its construction, the highway patrol and toll-takers who work on it, and the drivers who speed down its lanes every day.




Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike


Book Description

as this excerpt from the preface suggests, looking for America is a book about American values as much it is a book about a road that crosses the state of New Jersey.




Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike, Second Edition


Book Description

After thirty years, two American Studies professors from Rutgers University are still looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike-- that "ugly icon, '' America's "widest and most traveled'' road--that has found its way into the minds, if not the hearts, of artists and drivers alike. From the gray-flannel-suit diligence that built it, to the mixture of necessity, practicality and venality that maintains it, the New Jersey Turnpike endures as an enthralling though unlikely subject.




Explorer's Guide Jersey Shore: Atlantic City to Cape May: A Great Destination (Second Edition)


Book Description

Expert coverage of the distinctive 47 miles of southern New Jersey shore region, from Atlantic City to Cape May. Featuring expert coverage of the distinctive New Jersey shore region, from Atlantic City to Cape May. Jen Miller uncovers the fast-paced excitement that is Atlantic City, catering to visitors who are captivated by casino gambling, world-class entertainment, and nonstop nightlife. In addition, this upbeat guide includes Cape May information for bird-watchers, beachgoers, and fans of Victoriana: tour the town by trolley, enjoy culinary delights from crabcakes to international cuisine, or simply relax by the ocean. Finally, the ultimate Jersey Shore getaway—the Wildwoods—tempts with saltwater taffy, funnel cakes, fresh breezes, and countless other delicacies.




Finding North Jersey


Book Description

Northern New Jersey is one of the most densely populated places in the nation, but it is constantly defined by its relationship to New York City. In this insightful study, longtime North Jersey resident James Marcum asks why, looking well past the false stereotypes to a distinct regional culture and fascinating history. How did North Jersey become what it is today, and even more fundamentally, can we define its boundaries? Is it essentially suburban? What characterizes the region and its people? Join Marcum as he explores these and other issues to come to a better understanding of one of the most intriguing and diverse corners of the Garden State.




Antebellum American Women Writers and the Road


Book Description

A study of American women’s narratives of mobility and travel, this book examines how geographic movement opened up other movements or mobilities for antebellum women at a time of great national expansion. Concerned with issues of personal and national identity, the study demonstrates how women not only went out on the open road, but participated in public discussions of nationhood in the texts they wrote. Roberson examines a variety of narratives and subjects, including not only traditional travel narratives of voyages to the West or to foreign locales, but also the ways travel and movement figured in autobiography, spiritual, and political narratives, and domestic novels by women as they constructed their own politics of mobility. These narratives by such women as Margaret Fuller, Susan Warner, and Harriet Beecher Stowe destabilize the male-dominated stories of American travel and nation-building as women claimed the public road as a domain in which they belonged, bringing with them their own ideas about mobility, self, and nation. The many women’s stories of mobility also destabilize a singular view of women’s history and broaden our outlook on geographic movement and its repercussions for other movements. Looking at texts not usually labeled travel writing, like the domestic novel, brings to light social relations enacted on the road and the relation between story, location, and mobility.




The Car


Book Description

A spirited, insightful exploration of our favorite machine and it's cultural impact on society over the past one hundred and fifty years. More than any other technology, cars have transformed American popular culture. Cars have created vast wealth as well as novel dreams of freedom and mobility. They have transformed our sense of distance and made the world infinitely more available to our eyes and our imaginations. They have inspired cinema, music and literature; they have, by their need for roads, bridges, filling stations, huge factories and global supply chains, re-engineered the world. Almost everything we now need, want, imagine or aspire to assumes the existence of cars in all their limitless power and their complex systems of meanings. This book celebrates the immense drama and beauty of the car, of the genius embodied in the Ford Model T, of the glory of the brilliant-red Mercedes Benz S-Class made by workers for Nelson Mandela on his release from prison, of Kanye West's 'chopped' Maybach, of the salvation of the Volkswagen Beetle by Major Ivan Hirst, of Elvis Presley's 100 Cadillacs, of the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost and the BMC Mini and even of that harbinger of the end—the Tesla Model S and its creator Elon Musk. As the age of the car as we know it comes to an end, Bryan Appleyard's brilliantly insightful book tells the story of the rise and fall of the incredible machine that made the modern world what it is today.




Tinker Tales Untenable


Book Description

Scottish by birth, anarchist by persuasion, odd bikes and obscure comics by collection. Retired from thirty years of front line child protection, he lives between Scotland and British Columbia with his wife, three adult sons, and a blessing of grandchildren. Allan has penned reportage, articles, and fiction since the early eighties for a variety of motorcycle publications: Canadian Biker, Back Street Heroes (UK), Biker and Renegade (US). Pocahontas and Ubermensch have their real life counterparts in his stable, and the most recent build is a ‘31/’48 Chout (Chief/Scout) bobber. As for the magic...? Well, that’s really up to you. “Tinker Tales Untenable’ is a collection of previously unpublished short stories celebrating magic and motorcycles. Tinker is the son of an absentee Irish gypsy dad and a Scottish mother, raised poor and turned out on the streets after her death in his early teens. Blood will out, and he becomes a trader in iron ponies, only to become enmeshed in magic. Somehow he survives a sorcerer’s apprenticeship to Magic John, a notorious gutter-mage, as detailed in previous collections: ‘Tinker Tales’ (voted Fiction of the Year by motorcyclefiction.com) and ‘Tinker Tales Untold’ (Book of the Month, motorcyclefiction.com) yet trouble and temptation lurk around every corner. Here Tinker is reacquainted with (dead) members of his old outlaw club, acquires an illuminated tattoo, and runs into the Soviet version of Wonder Woman—amoungst other trials and tribulations. Hop on the pillion, hold tight, and enjoy the ride through, Britain, Canada, and America—not to mention Fairyland and beyond. Illustrated by: Louise Limb




New Jersey Politics and Government


Book Description

As the United States moves toward becoming a nation of suburbs, New Jersey is a place more Americans should get to know. The challenges it has overcome and those it continues to face provide lessons that will help states across the country address the struggles of providing quality education, protecting the environment, improving the quality of life, and accommodating a multicultural society while sustaining growth and opportunity. Written by two of the most respected political analysts in the state, this is the only book available that provides a comprehensive overview of politics and government in New Jersey. This thoroughly revised third edition, published for the first time by Rutgers University Press, also highlights recent scandals within the government and the high profile of the governorship.




The 1950s


Book Description

Have the 1950s been overly romanticized? Beneath the calm, conformist exterior, new ideas and attitudes were percolating. This was the decade of McCarthyism, Levittowns, and men in gray flannel suits, but the 1950s also saw bold architectural styles, the rise of paperback novels and the Beat writers, Cinema Scope and film noir, television variety shows, the Golden Age of the automobile, subliminal advertising, fast food, Frisbees, and silly putty. Meanwhile, teens attained a more prominent role in American culture with hot rods, rock 'n' roll, preppies and greasers, and—gasp—juvenile delinquency. At the same time, a new technological threat, the atom bomb, lurked beneath the surface of the postwar decade. This volume presents a nuanced look at a surprisingly complex time in American popular culture.