Book review: Why we drive: on freedom, risk and taking back control by Matthew Crawford

In Why We Drive: On Freedom, Risk and Taking Back Control, Matthew Crawford argues for driving as an activity that illustrates important features of a humanistic outlook worth preserving: the ability to exercise skill and judgment, to balance prudence and risk and, more broadly, to negotiate one’s individual freedom within the collaborative give-and-take of the road. While the book underplays the environmental impact of driving on our shared natural world, Crawford makes an eloquent case for better stewardship of our objects and sounds the alarm against the seemingly relentless march of ‘connectivity’ and ‘smart’ devices, finds Iancu Daramus. Why We Drive: On Freedom, Risk and Taking Back Control. Matthew Crawford. Bodley Head. 2020.