Is Unsafe at Any Speed one of the All-TIME 100 Best Nonfiction Books? TIME thinks so. Check it out.

Unsafe at Any Speed

By Tim Morrison | August 30, 2011 | +

Author: Ralph Nader

Year Released: 1965

If you’ve read Ralph Nader’s crusading work of consumer advocacy, you will remember the Chevrolet Corvair. Its lousy weight distribution and carelessly designed suspension caused the car to flip over when cornering at high or even moderate speeds, while its steering column had a tendency to piston backward in head-on collisions, impaling drivers. The saga of the Corvair makes up just one chapter of Nader’s pugnacious, deeply researched indictment of the U.S. automobile industry. He goes after everyone, from the stylists who added sharp, eye-catching (and often face- and limb-catching) protrusions to cars to traffic-safety advisory panels, whose work shifted culpability for road deaths from car manufacturers onto drivers themselves. Unsafe at Any Speed made future presidential candidate Nader a household name and helped push carmakers and the government to mandate basic safety features, such as seat belts for all passengers and rearview mirrors. But before you think Detroit’s come a long way since then, consider that in his 1965 book, Nader predicted that the industry would soon embrace a technology that would make seat belts obsolete. It took more than two decades for that device — the air bag — to become standard equipment.

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Related Topics: Ralph Nader, Unsafe at Any Speed

Melissa

Reblogged this on Swamp of Boredom and commented:
I’m reblogging this for my own reference and also to share with my readers (all 34 of you;)). Since the release of the 1001 Books App on Tuesday, I’ve been book list crazy. Since I like non-fiction – especially non-fiction centered on historical events and people, not so much current people – and have read a couple of excellent non-fiction books in the last year (Only Yesterday, Empire of the Summer Moon) I wondered if there was a list of recommended non-fiction books. Of course there is. I found one from the Guardain (UK) that is, obviously, geared towards British readers and that, unlike Time’s list, encompasses all non-fiction ever written. This list from Time consists of books only since Time began publishing, 1923. There are a few that don’t interest me at all and the biography choices focus too heavily on women and African Americans, IMO, but overall the list is excellent.
Enjoy!