A bright, enthusiastic cultural history.
~Kirkus
[A] dazzling cultural history of the bicycle . . . Guroff peppers these historical accounts with lively quotes from primary documents and her own sharp, modern insight. As she makes plain, it’s not just cyclists who have bicycles to thank for the way they get around—it’s everybody. And that makes The Mechanical Horse worth a read for the most avowed drivers, too.
~CityLab
Fascinating . . . Guroff does an admirable job reminding us of the bicycle’s lasting influence . . . [Her] book provides a colorful and helpful map of where we’ve been, and where we all might go from here.
~The Wall Street Journal
A narrative rich in history and based on formidable research . . . But what comes through most strongly in this nicely written, fast-paced narrative is Guroff’s love for her subject. If you adore your bike, you’re curious about where it came from, and you’d like to read about how it’s changed the world, then buy this book. It’s that simple.
~Washington Independent Review of Books
Guroff has penned a fascinating account of how such a seemingly simple invention could have such a global impact.
~Baltimore Magazine
Guroff defty tells how cycling grew, literally, from the iron drasine and wooden-wheeled velocipedes in the early 19th century to giant-front-wheel penny farthings.
~The Examiner
Guroff is a confident social historian who allows her eye for the colorful detail to lead the way while never neglecting to think through the chain of incidents and inventions that paved the road from the early 19th-century draisine, two wheels and a seat but not much else, to the battery-assisted fat-wheeled wonders of today. . . . Good stories abound in Guroff's account.
~The Weekly Standard
Who knew that besides representing a marvel of mechanical efficiency, the bicycle also has a fascinating social history? It turns out that its story is a very readable tale of social change in America.
~Minnesota Star Tribune
Margaret Guroff’s survey of the role the bicycle has played in America’s social and cultural development covers a lot of ground at a necessarily rapid cadence. We learn that America’s relationship with the bicycle is an on-off romance based partly on fashion and partly on utility… Today, while cycling enjoys rising popularity in prosperous urban area, overall ridership has decreased especially among children. Guroff speculates that computers, smartphones and heightened protectiveness may mean the bicycle is no longer a suburban kid’s birthright. Let’s hope not.
~Times Literary Supplement
Guroff looks at bicycling from its early days to the present, offering fascinating insights that connect the earlier years with the present.
~AETHLON: The Journal of Sport Literature
The Mechanical Horse is first-rate popular history that ought to interest professional historians of business, capitalism, and technology.
~Business History Review
An exceptional example of an empathetic historical imagination, and fantastically good at making history accessible to all.
~Great Plains Quarterly
A provocative, in-depth analysis of the two-wheeler’s shifting influence on American society. Highly recommended.
~David Herlihy, author of Bicycle: The History
Margaret Guroff has broken new ground with this masterful account of the bicycle revolution set in the broad context of American social and cultural history. The Mechanical Horse is that rarest of books, a work of solid scholarship and deep analysis so readable that you can’t put it down.
~Tom Crouch, author of The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright
