Tom Standage is deputy editor of the Economist and the author of six history books, including Writing on the Wall, the New York Times bestsellers A History of the World in 6 Glasses and An Edible History of Humanity, and The Victorian Internet, a history of the telegraph. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Wired, and other publications. Standage holds a degree in engineering and computer science from Oxford University. He lives in London.

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From the New York Times bestselling author and deputy editor of the Economist comes an illuminating, incisive, characteristically readable 5,500-year history of how transportation has shaped our civilisation.

Tom Standage's surprising global histories have delighted readers and sold over half a million copies worldwide. Now, he returns with a provocative account of an overlooked form of technology - personal transportation - and explores how it has shaped societies and cultures over millennia.

Beginning around 3,500 BC with the wheel, Standage moves through the eras of horsepower, trains, bicycles and cars, revealing how each successive mode of transit embedded itself in the world we live in - from the geography of our cities, to our experience of time, to our notions of gender.

Today, after the growth of ride-sharing and the rise of autonomous vehicles, the social transformations spurred by coronavirus and climate change create a unique opportunity to critically re-examine our relationship with how we travel. With A Brief History of Motion, Standage overturns everyday myths about one of our most fundamental forms of technology, and invites us to look at our past with fresh eyes.

There aren't many books this entertaining that also provide a cogent crash course in ancient, classical and modern history

An extraordinary and well-told story on a much neglected dimension of history