Minding the Gap: Pan-Americanism's Highway, American Environmentalism, and Remembering the Failure to Close the Darién (2014)
The Pan-American Highway, proposed in 1923, was Pan-Americanism's most publicized idea, and the dream of a hemispheric highway inspired automotive adventurers from Canada to Argentina to attempt---and largely fail---to drive off-road from one American continent to the other. Despite a fifty-year consensus about the proposed highway's economic, cultural, and diplomatic benefits and even with the considerable momentum of automotive civilization behind it, one still cannot drive between North and South America. This article considers the hazards of the Central American environment and the early vibrancy of North American environmentalism as explanations for the failure to complete the highway. It commemorates, in a sense, an event that did not happen.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Bess, Michael K.;
(2017)
Routes of compromise: building roads and shaping the nation in Mexico, 1917-1952
(/isis/citation/CBB461230369/)
Article
Blomkvist, Pär;
(2004)
Transferring Technology--Shaping Ideology: American Traffic Engineering and Commercial Interests in the Establishment of a Swedish Car Society, 1945-1965
(/isis/citation/CBB611785485/)
Article
Tomás Errázuriz;
Guillermo Giucci;
(2016)
The Ambiguities of Progress: Cultural appropriation of electric trams in the Southern Cone, 1890-1950 (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil)
(/isis/citation/CBB193696234/)
Book
Michal Ďurčo;
(2021)
Cesty a diaľnice na Slovensku v medzivojnovom období: Nástup automobilovej doby v znamení prvej Československej Republiky
(/isis/citation/CBB876947771/)
Article
Gunn, Simon;
(2011)
The Buchanan Report, Environment and the Problem of Traffic in 1960s Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001230920/)
Article
Johnston, Erik W.;
Johnston, Van R.;
(2004)
Notes from the Field: Norway and the automobile
(/isis/citation/CBB794162382/)
Article
Seely, Bruce Edsall;
Klingner, Donald E.;
Klein, Gary;
(2004)
"Push" and "Pull" Factors in Technology Transfer: Moving American-Style Highway Engineering to Europe, 1945-1965
(/isis/citation/CBB777716423/)
Chapter
Tim Cole;
(2018)
About Britain: Driving the Landscape of Britain (at speed?)
(/isis/citation/CBB042190491/)
Article
Elrahman, Ossama Abd;
(2004)
Notes from the Field: Sweden's car culture and technology transfer
(/isis/citation/CBB324450539/)
Article
Ostby, Per;
(2004)
Educating the Norwegian Nation: Traffic Engineering and Technological Diffusion
(/isis/citation/CBB651170069/)
Article
Dante Martins Teixeira;
Cecilia Veracini;
(2017)
Perception and Description of New World Non-Human Primates in the Travel Literature of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: A Critical Review
(/isis/citation/CBB632545212/)
Book
Liedtke, Rainer;
(2012)
Die industrielle Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001420995/)
Book
Few, Martha;
Tortorici, Zeb;
(2013)
Centering Animals in Latin American History
(/isis/citation/CBB001422387/)
Article
Zylstra, Geoff D.;
(2011)
Whiteness, Freedom, and Technology: The Racial Struggle over Philadelphia's Streetcars, 1859--1867
(/isis/citation/CBB001230757/)
Book
Penelope Harvey;
Hannah Know;
(2015)
Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise
(/isis/citation/CBB102244856/)
Article
John E. Mohr;
(March 2021)
The Freeway Journey: Landscape and Mobility in the Southern Auto Industry
(/isis/citation/CBB793055303/)
Thesis
Vogel, Andrew;
(2007)
Narrating the Geography of Automobility: American Road Story, 1893--1921
(/isis/citation/CBB001560949/)
Article
Soppelsa, Peter;
(2011)
Intersections: Technology, Mobility, and Geography
(/isis/citation/CBB001230756/)
Book
Maria Luísa Sousa;
(2016)
A Mobilidade Automóvel em Portugal, 1920-1950
(/isis/citation/CBB901356486/)
Book
McBride, David;
(2002)
Missions for Science: U. S. Technology and Medicine in America's African World
(/isis/citation/CBB000301936/)
Be the first to comment!