Kenilworth Books is pleased to sponsor
‘On Roads : A Hidden History’
~ a talk by Jo Moran
on Saturday 15th May 2010, 17:00 hrs
at Kenilworth Library, Smalley Place, Kenilworth
Joe Moran is a social and cultural historian based at Liverpool John Moores University with a particular interest in the commonplace. He regularly writes for The Guardian and the New Statesmen about British everyday life, from mid-twentieth century to the present day.
His talk for the Kenilworth Festival, ‘On Roads: A Hidden History’ is a study of roads “as cultural artefacts as much as concrete ones”, which psychoanalyses post-war Britain through its road-network. We use roads every day, yet we have no idea of why our journeys are the way they are – of how roads are built, signposted, mapped or numbered. In unravelling this history, Joe will throw a whole new light onto our history and our daily lives.
Using a unique blend of travel writing, anthropology, history and social observation, he explores how Britain’s roads have their roots in unexpected places. He looks at the Roman role in the way our roads are numbered, the ancient sat-nav systems of China of 2600BC, and the unknown demonstrations against by-passes in the 1920’s, and ends up with more current arguments about road pricing and road rage.
Full of quirky history, this talk also celebrates the overlooked people whose work we take for granted, such as Percy Shaw, the inventor of the cats eye, Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert, the designers of the road sign system and Charles Forte, the entrepreneur behind the service station.
Copies of the book “On Roads: A Hidde History” will be available for sale at the talk to be signed by the author.
Tickets priced at £5 are available via the Kenilworth Festival website, by ringing Oxboffice on 0845 680 1926 or from Kenilworth Books.
“A book that is fresh and original… Moran is terrific on all the quirky nonsense” – Matthew Angel, Financial Times
“Wonderful. Joe Moran is the master of turning the mundane realities of everyday life into the stuff of history.” – Dominic Sandbrook
“Jo Moran’s terrific book is an imaginative history : a study of roads ‘as cultural artefacts as much as concrete ones’, which psychoanalyses post-war Britain through its road-network.” The Guardian
‘Joe Moran has a genius for turning the prosaic poetic – this is a tone poem in tarmac. Motorway journeys will never be so dull again. A treat.’ Peter Hennessy, author of ‘Having It So Good’.”
