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The Landmark series for children, both American and World, is a wonderful, with few exceptions, collection of books written in the 1950s and 1960s and published by Random House. The publisher chose well-known authors, some of whom were novelists and some of whom had not written for children before, and had a historical consultant for each title to make sure that the writing was accurate. There are 122 American Landmark books and 63 World Landmark books. The reading level is fairly broad, intended for upper elementary to early high school level. The books were intended to convey sound history or biography but in such a manner as to not detract from the intrinsic interest of the story, as history textbooks often do, but to bring out the fascination and drama of the history or historical character being discussed. History is at heart a series of stories, especially at this level, and should be told as such. For the overwhelming majority of the 185 titles, this effort was successful.
Number 68 in the American Landmark book series is The Early Days of Automobiles, by Elizabeth Janeway. It is hard to imagine the United States without the modern automobile. The combination of good road systems, the affordability of personal cars, and (for the most part) intelligent and well-enforced traffic laws support an unprecedented level of mobility, efficient supply chains, and prosperous living conditions in the United States. But the personal vehicle, the automobile, is not that old as far as history goes. There were cars in the late 1800s but the explosion of car ownership and use, which continues to the present day, started with Henry Ford’s assembly line production of the model T car in around 1908, not much more than 100 years ago. Janeway does an excellent job of describing the development of personal, self-propelled vehicles. Modern readers will find out how their car came to be and learn to better appreciate it. Knowing where cars came from gives us a foundation with which to critique modern developments. Technological progress is not a matter of wizardry but is hard work based in sound science and engineering. Reading Janeway’s book will help young people to appreciate this point and will encourage them to join this effort by becoming a scientist or engineer and not just accept technology as a person in a primitive society accepts “magic.” At the very least, they will appreciate where automobiles came from so that they can better understand where cars are going to in the future.