Overview

The racers—an Italian prince and his chauffeur, a French racing driver, a con man, and several rival journalists—battle over steep inclines, through narrow mountain passages, and across the arid Gobi Desert. Competitors endure torrential rain and choking dust. There are barely any roads, and petrol is almost impossible to find. A global audience of millions follows each twist and turn, devouring reports telegraphed from the course. More than its many adventures, the Peking-to-Paris Motor Challenge took place on the precipice of a new world. As the twentieth century dawned, imperial regimes in China and Russia were crumbling, paving the way for the rise of communist ones. The electric telegraph was rapidly transforming modern communication, and with it, the news media, commerce, and politics. Suspended between the old and the new, the Peking-to-Paris, as best-selling historian Kassia St. Clair writes, became a critical tipping point. A gripping, immersive narrative of the race, The Race to the Future sets the drivers’ derring-do (and occasional cheating) against the backdrop of a larger geopolitical and technological race to the future. Interweaving events from the fall of the Qing dynasty to the departure of the horse economy and the rise of gendered marketing, St. Clair shows how the Peking-to-Paris provided an impetus for profound social, cultural, and industrial change, while masterfully capturing the mounting tensions between nations and empires—all building up to the cataclysmic event that changed everything: the First World War. “Consistently mind-boggling, often funny, and occasionally hair-raising” (Philip Ball), The Race to the Future is the incredible true story of the quest against the odds that propelled us along the road to modernity.

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9781324094913

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Reviews

"""An incredible and stirring story. . . . Its opening pages resemble Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, the comic film from 1965 about a fictional air race to Paris. This contest features the same amateurish mix of competition, camaraderie, and national pride, as well as a larky sense of adventure."" -- Guy Stagg - Spectator ""This oddball collection of adventurers gripped the public’s imagination, helping to transform the motor car from just an experimental novelty into a mass-market mode of transport that changed the world forever."" -- Jeremy Warner - Telegraph ""A captivating history of a seemingly impossible journey and one of the most challenging endurance trials in the history of motoring. . . . St. Clair’s narrative is full of surprises."" -- Miranda Seymour - Literary Review ""Kassia St. Clair’s glorious account of a transglobal race at the birth of the automobile has to be read to be believed. Woven into the narrative is an elegant history of the motor car and its impacts on society: a tale of ambition, innovation, adventure and empire. . . . The Race to the Future manages to be both an exhilarating and a profound account of one of the early twentieth century’s most bizarre episodes."" -- Philip Ball ""Kassia St. Clair has clearly done her research. . . . She tells a thrilling tale."" -- Country Life"

Author Information

Kassia St. Clair specializes in telling gripping stories about the overlooked and the everyday. She has written about history and culture for publications including the Economist, Elle, and Times Literary Supplement. The author of The Golden Thread and The Secret Lives of Color, she lives in London.

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