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This is an eye-opening road trip through 5,500 years of human history. How has transportation inevitably shaped human civilization? Tom Standage reveals the answer to this question. Beginning with the appearance of the wheel around 3500 B. C., Standage takes us quickly through the eras of horse-drawn carriages, trains, and bicycles, showing how these successive modes of transportation have integrated into our lives, from urban geography to our experience of time to our notions of gender. Standage then delves into the history of the automobile, exploring society's resistance to the automobile and the dramatic changes that occurred as the automobile became widely used. Cars have changed the way the world is governed, how it is laid out and traffic is managed, and how it looks, sounds and smells - and not always in ways we like. Now, after the explosion of shared mobility and years of predictions about self-driving cars, the social changes triggered by the overlap of COVID-19 and climate change create a unique opportunity to critically re-examine our relationship with cars. In History on Wheels, Standage overturns prevailing myths, considers the paths we have not taken, and leads us to see the past in a new light. From this, we can create the future we want to see.