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Distributed for Reaktion Books

In Praise of the Bicycle

Witness the French anthropologist as we have never seen him before. Marc Augé coined the term “non-place” to describe the ubiquitous airports, hotels, and motorways filled with anonymous individuals. In this new book, he casts his anthropologist’s eye on a subject close to his heart: cycling.  With In Praise of the Bicycle, Augé takes us on a two-wheeled ride around our cities and on a personal journey into ourselves. We all remember the thrill of riding a bike for the first time and the joys of cycling. Here he reminds us that these memories are not just personal, but rooted in a time and a place, in a history that is shared with millions of others.

Part memoir, part manifesto, Augé’s book celebrates cycling as a way of reconnecting with the places in which we live, and, ultimately, as a necessary alternative to our disconnected world.

96 pages | 8 halftones | 4 3/4 x 7 3/4 | © 2019

Sport and Recreation


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Reviews

“In this playful (and playfully illustrated) little book, deftly translated by Fagan, a French anthropologist expounds on his love of cycling. On a bicycle, he asserts, ‘you become someone else, and yet you are yourself as never before.’ . . . The bicycle . . . is a tool for the realization of humanism. . . . His argument is fast and incautious; he’s freewheeling and having great fun.”

Joe Mungo Reed | New York Times Book Review

"A rewarding read. . . . There are, after all, ways to reclaim our connection to the places where we live starting now. As Auge writes in conclusion, 'A return to utopia, a return to what is real—they are the same. Get on your bike to improve everyone’s life!'"

Bay Bicyclist

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