A provocative account of an overlooked form of technology - personal transportation - and an exploration of how it has shaped societies and cultures over millennia. Beginning around 3,500 BC with the wheel, Tom Standage moves through the eras of horsepower, trains, bicycles and cars, revealing how each successive mode of transit embedded itself in the world we live in from the geography of our cities, to our experience of time, to our notions of gender. From the wheel to the car, to what comes next.