Customer Reviews

History of Motorcycles

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If you are a visually oriented, nonlinear reader, then this is a great book. Organized roughly chronologically, this book presents a wealth of information. Entries typically take a page or two, and are profusely illustrated. While this book isn't encyclopedic in nature, it is surprising the amount of information that is contained.

The one thing that might put some people off is that the book is somewhat British in orientation. It is not that the book focuses unduly on British bikes. Quite the opposite, in fact, since there is a lot of information on European, American, and Japanese motorcycles. Instead, the British orientation shows in the topics covered, and the basic viewpoints. For example, there is a section on "green lane" riding, which covers the past-time of riding along old right-of-ways in the UK (in case any American readers aren't aware of this, there is a whole tradition and body of common law regarding the rights of the public to use traditional passage ways, even when those passages now cross private land). Don't be put off by this comment, it is only a small quibble, and anybody that regularly reads any of the British classic bike magazines will be completely at ease with this book.

As I said at the beginning, this is a great book if you like books with lots of sidebars and illustrations. I read enough dry, academic stuff at work (I'm an academic), and so I enjoy seeing books with good material AND good presentation.