This is the story of how the car changed a city.

Graeme Davison, Australia's leading urban historian, explores the Melbourne he knows so well to show us how the car entered our national consciousness - as an object of desire, a status symbol, a creator of freedoms, a shaper of sexual mores. His is a fascinating journey through landscapes changed and cities redesigned by the car, of mayhem on the road and influence in the world of politics, of communities challenged and the environment threatened, and of an ongoing love affair with a machine.

Car Wars is a history of people, politics, landscapes, conflict, engineering, social movements and the environment. It is a story that is erudite, illuminating and elegantly told.