Introduction: a common space to enjoy – Paquetá Island; 1. Systems circulatory before the wheel – Ouvidor Street; 2. The street's apotheosis – Central Avenue; 3. Putting the car in carnival – Rio Branco Avenue; 4. A blunt instrument – Misericórdia Square; 5. Automotive law and the promises of safety – Assembly Street; 6. Buyers and regrets – Praça Onze (Square Eleven); 7. Automotive flow vs. automotive storage – Castelo Hill; Conclusion: revolutions at the end of the street – Brasilia.
A compelling history of the impact of automobiles on the streets of Rio de Janeiro.
Shawn William Miller is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Brigham Young University. He is an environmental historian and the author of An Environmental History of Latin America (Cambridge, 2007).
'With touches of the finest conventions of writing about Brazilian
cities and their denizens, this is a study of the streets of
downtown Rio de Janeiro as experienced by people, animals, and
machines. Alongside his history of street paving and street
beautification, Miller describes the 'invention' of pedestrian and
motorist. Attentive to the entwined histories of danger and thrill
in the Marvelous City, The Street is Ours is a fascinating
examination of the most commonplace of all urban settings - the
street - as a contested, lively public good often turned over to,
but never fully dominated by, the private needs of the automobile.'
Daryle Williams, co-editor of The Rio de Janeiro Reader: History,
Culture, Politics
'By analyzing the street as a 'natural resource', one surprisingly
resistant to privatization and depletion, this book skillfully
blends urban, social, and environmental history. Miller shows the
various ways Cariocas have used their streets and how this resource
has been transformed by the physical presence and violent motion of
the automobile. Richly detailed and elegantly provocative, Miller
invites us to experience the city of the past with all our senses.'
Emily Wakild, author of Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social
Justice, and Mexico's National Parks, 1910–1940
'The Street Is Ours: Community, the Car, and the Nature of Public
Space in Rio de Janeiro is a brilliant history of the streets of
Rio de Janeiro … a rich and captivating volume. Miller's depiction
of Rio's transforming streets is dense, lively, and diverse, thanks
to a great range of sources that includes legal documents, gossip
columns, literature, music and arts, automobile press, official
statistics, and not least the urban landscape itself.' Antoine
Acker, The American Historical Review
'The Street Is Ours is a unique urban environmental history that
makes one see that cities, not just the countryside, were once more
than they are today. Community requires space; modernity, via the
car, stripped that away. The book helps explain parts of Rio
culture today, like the closure of certain highways on weekends in
an effort to recapture the street's multidimensionality. Miller
successfully creates a tangible history of something that one might
otherwise only feel.' Jennifer Eaglin, Hispanic American Historical
Review
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