Contents List of Illustrations Preface Introduction: 'Pacific Mobility': Irony, Class and the Car as Medium Part I: Doom, for Some? Questioning the Car Chapter 1. The Shock of the Oil: Energy and the Carnival of Mass-Produced Car Adventure (1970s-1990) Introduction: A Postmodern Automotive Adventure? Western Mobilities: Energy, Environment and the Middle Classes Banalizing the Automotive Adventure: Highbrow Automotive Culture The Revival of Automotive Adventure: The Car in Western Popular Culture The Limits of Mobility Growth: The Urban Crisis Globalizing Environmental Consciousness: Towards a "Pacific Century" Conclusions: Beyond a Nihilistic Automotive Adventure? Part II: Confusion: Where Is the Adventure? Chapter 2. The Motorization Miracle: The Quest of the Rest (1990-2015) Neoliberalizing Mobility: Introduction Opening up: Motorizing the Chinese Middle Class On the Road to Hyperautomobility? Turn of the Millennium 'Development' through Motorization in the Rest of the World Neoliberal Mobility: Automotive Adventure, Ecological Concerns and 'the War on the Car' Conclusions Chapter 3. The Adventure Machine Redux? Searching for the Motives of the Neoliberal Motorist From the 'West' to the 'Rest': Introduction Parallel Worlds: Post-Postmodern Reflections on a New Multi-Modal Mobility Culture Emancipatory Mobilities: Adventures Produced by Women, Ethnic Minorities and Working-Class Youth Carnivalizing Adventure: Popular Culture and the Shifting Class Base of the Adventure Machine Bipolar Dichotomies: Diasporic Mobilities between South and North Provincializing Adventure: The Commodity Character of the Car in Heavily Layered Mobility Billionaires, Brothers and Other Incarnations: Car Adventure and Family in China The Loss of Automotive Irony: Conclusions Conclusion. 'Deplorable' Mobilities and the Future of the Car Adventure Bibliography Index.