Kassia St Clair - The Race to the Future

Bestselling author Kassia St Clair will be launching her new book 'The Race to the Future' here at the bookshop. After years of carfeul research she has uncovered the story of the most hare-brained and epic journey the world has ever known. More intruiging still, you’ve probably never heard of it.

In June 1907 five automobiles roared over a start line near the Forbidden City in Beijing. Two continents, two months and 8,000 miles later, they had changed the world and helped usher in a new era of modernisation.

The participants – including an Italian prince, his chauffeur, a former French racing driver, a conman and sundry journalists – blazed over mountain ranges, through forests and across the great Gobi Desert.

Automobiles crashed through spindly wooden bridges and had to be floated across rivers; fuel was transported in part by train and camel. All the while a global audience followed every twist and turn with bated breath, devouring reports telegraphed by embedded journalists across the world.

More than a spectacle of endurance, the Peking-Paris happened at a pivotal moment in history when the world was witnessing profound social, cultural and technological change. From the first automobiles, the hidden story of female motorists, animal-powered cities and the invention of the telegraph to the Communist Revolution in Russia, mass production in America and the build-up to the First World War, The Race to the Future is the story of the birth of our modern age.

Kassia is a cultural historian and journalist and is the author of the acclaimed 'Secret Lives of Colour' and 'The Golden Thread'. 

Thursday 23rd November 2023 - 7.30pm

Tickets £6.00