J. Brian Freeman | Indian River State College (original) (raw)

Books by J. Brian Freeman

Research paper thumbnail of Technology and Culture in Twentieth Century Mexico (University of Alabama Press, 2013)

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Articles and Chapters by J. Brian Freeman

Research paper thumbnail of Travel and Transport in Mexico

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, 2018

In his 1950 study, Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread, historian Frank Tannenbaum remarked ... more In his 1950 study, Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread, historian Frank Tannenbaum remarked that " physical geography could not have been better designed to isolate Mexico from the world and Mexicans from one another. " He recognized, like others before him, that the difficulty of travel by foot, water, or wheel across the country's troublesome landscape was an unavoidable element of its history. Its distinctive topography of endless mountains but few navigable rivers had functioned, in some sense, as a historical actor in the larger story of Mexico. In the mid-19th century, Lucas Alamán had recognized as much when he lamented that nature had denied the country " all means of interior communication, " while three centuries before that, conquistador Hernán Cortés reportedly apprised Emperor Charles V of the geography of his new dominion by presenting him with a crumpled piece of paper. Over the last half-millennium, however, technological innovation, use, and adaptation radically altered how humans moved in and through the Mexican landscape. New modes of movement—from railway travel to human flight—were incorporated into a mosaic of older practices of mobility. Along the way, these material transformations were entangled with changing economic, political, and cultural ideas that left their own imprint on the history of travel and transportation. It comes as a surprise to many modern observers to learn that although the pre-Columbian societies of Mesoamerica understood the principle of the wheel, and some incorporated it into toy figurines, none appear to have utilized it for transportation. Jared Diamond has attempted to explain this paradox by arguing that native peoples of the Americas never adopted wheels because they lacked the large domesticatable animals

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Research paper thumbnail of "El despertar del camión de carga en México," in Automotores y transporte público. Un acercamiento desde los estudios históricos, Ilse Angélica Álvarez Palma, ed. (El Colegio Mexiquense, 2017)

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Research paper thumbnail of "Mexico City and the Conquest of the Car," in Mexibility: We Are In the City, We Cannot Leave, Friedrich von Borries & Moritz Ahlert, eds. (Mexico City: Editorial RM and Goethe-Institut Mexiko, 2017)

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Research paper thumbnail of "'Los hijos de Ford': Mexico in the Automobile Age, 1900-1930," in Technology and Culture in Twentieth Century Mexico (University of Alabama Press, 2013)

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Research paper thumbnail of “El automóvil y el turismo Norteamericano en México, 1900-1940,” in Historia de México desde la óptica de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (2012)

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Research paper thumbnail of "Driving Pan-Americanism: The Imagination of a Gulf of Mexico Highway," The Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies 3:4 (Fall 2009-Spring 2010): 56-68.

The Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies, Jan 1, 2009

This article examines the intertwined efforts of Mexican and Cuban officials, US policy makers an... more This article examines the intertwined efforts of Mexican and Cuban officials, US policy makers and business interests, as well as tourists and tourism advocates, to link all three countries' highway systems around the Gulf of Mexico and promote automobile excursions in the region from the 1930s through the 1950s. Adopting Ricardo D. Salvatore's concept of "transportation utopia," the article argues that the physical and imaginary construction of this particular infrastructural project came into being through the combined impact of the politics of hemispheric unity, the emergence of tourism as a development strategy, and the growing vogue of automobile touring. The article first situates the circum-gulf highway project within an earlier history of road building, tourism, and motoring in Cuba and Mexico. It then traces the numerous efforts by officials from all three countries to join these road systems through a circum-Gulf automobile link, an idea that soon became the subject of numerous articles published in such magazines and newspapers as Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Life magazine, and the New York Times. Finally, the article concludes by examining the collapse of the project in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution.

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Research paper thumbnail of "'La carrera de la muerte': Death, Driving, and Rituals of Modernization in 1950s Mexico," Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 29 (2011): 2-23

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Reviews by J. Brian Freeman

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Joel Wolfe, Autos and Progress: The Brazilian Search for Modernity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), Transfers: New Mobilities Studies 1.1 (Spring 2011): 158.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Aaron W. Navarro. Political Intelligence and the Creation of Modern Mexico, 1938-1954. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010.

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Papers by J. Brian Freeman

Research paper thumbnail of Technology and culture in twentieth-century Mexico

Technology and Culture in Twentieth-Century Mexico offers a novel approach to Mexican studies by ... more Technology and Culture in Twentieth-Century Mexico offers a novel approach to Mexican studies by considering the complex relationship between technology, politics, society, and culture. While it is widely accepted by scholars that substantial changes in technology occurred in Mexico during the last century, very little has been written on these issues, perhaps because of a propensity to associate Mexico with tradition and folklore rather than technology, progress, and modernity. This diverse collection of chapters--written by historians, literary scholars, social scientists, and cultural critics--tells this long-neglected story of technological change. Contributors examine themes ranging from the introduction of new forms of travel (automobiles, buses, trains, and subways) to innovations in media (radio, film, and the Internet) to the relationships between technology, literature, art, and architecture. Covering the twentieth century and beyond, Technology and Culture in Twentieth-Ce...

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Research paper thumbnail of Technology and Culture in Twentieth Century Mexico (University of Alabama Press, 2013)

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Research paper thumbnail of Travel and Transport in Mexico

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, 2018

In his 1950 study, Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread, historian Frank Tannenbaum remarked ... more In his 1950 study, Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread, historian Frank Tannenbaum remarked that " physical geography could not have been better designed to isolate Mexico from the world and Mexicans from one another. " He recognized, like others before him, that the difficulty of travel by foot, water, or wheel across the country's troublesome landscape was an unavoidable element of its history. Its distinctive topography of endless mountains but few navigable rivers had functioned, in some sense, as a historical actor in the larger story of Mexico. In the mid-19th century, Lucas Alamán had recognized as much when he lamented that nature had denied the country " all means of interior communication, " while three centuries before that, conquistador Hernán Cortés reportedly apprised Emperor Charles V of the geography of his new dominion by presenting him with a crumpled piece of paper. Over the last half-millennium, however, technological innovation, use, and adaptation radically altered how humans moved in and through the Mexican landscape. New modes of movement—from railway travel to human flight—were incorporated into a mosaic of older practices of mobility. Along the way, these material transformations were entangled with changing economic, political, and cultural ideas that left their own imprint on the history of travel and transportation. It comes as a surprise to many modern observers to learn that although the pre-Columbian societies of Mesoamerica understood the principle of the wheel, and some incorporated it into toy figurines, none appear to have utilized it for transportation. Jared Diamond has attempted to explain this paradox by arguing that native peoples of the Americas never adopted wheels because they lacked the large domesticatable animals

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of "El despertar del camión de carga en México," in Automotores y transporte público. Un acercamiento desde los estudios históricos, Ilse Angélica Álvarez Palma, ed. (El Colegio Mexiquense, 2017)

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of "Mexico City and the Conquest of the Car," in Mexibility: We Are In the City, We Cannot Leave, Friedrich von Borries & Moritz Ahlert, eds. (Mexico City: Editorial RM and Goethe-Institut Mexiko, 2017)

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of "'Los hijos de Ford': Mexico in the Automobile Age, 1900-1930," in Technology and Culture in Twentieth Century Mexico (University of Alabama Press, 2013)

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of “El automóvil y el turismo Norteamericano en México, 1900-1940,” in Historia de México desde la óptica de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (2012)

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of "Driving Pan-Americanism: The Imagination of a Gulf of Mexico Highway," The Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies 3:4 (Fall 2009-Spring 2010): 56-68.

The Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies, Jan 1, 2009

This article examines the intertwined efforts of Mexican and Cuban officials, US policy makers an... more This article examines the intertwined efforts of Mexican and Cuban officials, US policy makers and business interests, as well as tourists and tourism advocates, to link all three countries' highway systems around the Gulf of Mexico and promote automobile excursions in the region from the 1930s through the 1950s. Adopting Ricardo D. Salvatore's concept of "transportation utopia," the article argues that the physical and imaginary construction of this particular infrastructural project came into being through the combined impact of the politics of hemispheric unity, the emergence of tourism as a development strategy, and the growing vogue of automobile touring. The article first situates the circum-gulf highway project within an earlier history of road building, tourism, and motoring in Cuba and Mexico. It then traces the numerous efforts by officials from all three countries to join these road systems through a circum-Gulf automobile link, an idea that soon became the subject of numerous articles published in such magazines and newspapers as Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Life magazine, and the New York Times. Finally, the article concludes by examining the collapse of the project in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of "'La carrera de la muerte': Death, Driving, and Rituals of Modernization in 1950s Mexico," Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 29 (2011): 2-23

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Joel Wolfe, Autos and Progress: The Brazilian Search for Modernity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), Transfers: New Mobilities Studies 1.1 (Spring 2011): 158.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Aaron W. Navarro. Political Intelligence and the Creation of Modern Mexico, 1938-1954. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Technology and culture in twentieth-century Mexico

Technology and Culture in Twentieth-Century Mexico offers a novel approach to Mexican studies by ... more Technology and Culture in Twentieth-Century Mexico offers a novel approach to Mexican studies by considering the complex relationship between technology, politics, society, and culture. While it is widely accepted by scholars that substantial changes in technology occurred in Mexico during the last century, very little has been written on these issues, perhaps because of a propensity to associate Mexico with tradition and folklore rather than technology, progress, and modernity. This diverse collection of chapters--written by historians, literary scholars, social scientists, and cultural critics--tells this long-neglected story of technological change. Contributors examine themes ranging from the introduction of new forms of travel (automobiles, buses, trains, and subways) to innovations in media (radio, film, and the Internet) to the relationships between technology, literature, art, and architecture. Covering the twentieth century and beyond, Technology and Culture in Twentieth-Ce...

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