The road that became known as Route 66 holds a unique place in American popular culture. Unlike any other road in world history, this modest two-lane highway took on cult status, bound up with American nostalgia for a recent past in which life was far less complex and mechanized than it has now become. Inaugurated by a group of businessmen in the 1920s, at a time when the automobile was first asserting itself as one of the main preferences for family holiday travel, its life-span was short - less than fifty years - but its ...
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The road that became known as Route 66 holds a unique place in American popular culture. Unlike any other road in world history, this modest two-lane highway took on cult status, bound up with American nostalgia for a recent past in which life was far less complex and mechanized than it has now become. Inaugurated by a group of businessmen in the 1920s, at a time when the automobile was first asserting itself as one of the main preferences for family holiday travel, its life-span was short - less than fifty years - but its mythology goes on and on. While Freddy Langer's text tell's the curious story of Route 66 in some detail, it is Gerd Kittel's extraordinary photographs that tell the story of the road as it is now. Wistful, brutal and beautiful at the same time, these documents of today show what has become a once powerful symbol of American hopes and pleasures: the wrecks of abandoned automobiles, the deserted diners and souvenir shops; the battered remnants of failed silos and warehouses; derelict towns; surviving personalities and buildings, as well as some of the views the road offers as it passes through seven states between Chicago and the Pacific Ocean. Before the advent of interstate superhighways, that was the main attraction of the road - its appeal to the American drive towards the West, where opportunity and success were believed to be waiting.
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Seller's Description:
Very good in very good dust jacket. Eine Straße als Mythos. Heute ist die Route 66 tot. Doch die Erinnerung an sie wird mit Hingabe gepflegt. Gerd Kittel liefert mit seinen Fotografien eine Studie über den amerikanischen Traum, der im Highway seinen eigenständigen kulturellen Ausdruck gefunden hat. In seiner fotografischen Analyse stellt Gerd Kittel die Frage nach den Mythen unserer Zeit. Freddy Langer ergänzt die Bilder mit pointierten Apercus und luziden Beobachtungen. Michael Koetzle, Jahrgang 1953, ist u. a. Chefredakteur der Zeitschrift "Leica World". Es gibt von ihm zahlreiche Veröffentlichungen zu Geschichte und Ästhetik der Fotografie. Freddy Langer, 1957 in Frankfurt geboren, studierte Anglistik und Amerikanistik. Seit 1989 ist er Redakteur des Reiseblatts der "Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung". Etliche seiner Reportagen und Glossen wurden prämiert. Außerdem schreibt er Buch-und Kunstkritiken und ist Autor zahlreicher Bücher. Gerd Kittel, Jahrgang 1948, arbeitete kurze Zeit als Arzt, bevor er sich 1982 der Fotografie zuwandte. International bekannt wurde er durch seine Bildbände über Amerika. Zunehmend konzentriert er sich dabei auf den Highway, der ihm zum Ausgangspunkt einer grundsätzlichen Auseinandersetzung auch mit unserer eigenen Kultur geworden ist.