Vehicle of Desire: Evolution of the Automobile and America's Dependence on Petroleum, by Mahmoud Mimir Musa and William Cecil-Smith, attempts to bring into perspective two hundred years of the American love affair with the car and its impact on U.S. energy dependence. Musa and Cecil-Smith's detailed and thoroughly researched book leaves no stone unturned in its lucid description of how America has come to its current crossroads with oil and the automobile. Musa and Cecil-Smith's Vehicle of Desire: Tracing America's Dependence on Petroleum examines not just the technical aspects of the challenges facing American transportation and our car-culture, they also investigate the cultural and sociological factors that have turned America's love affair with the automobile into a global concern. Written with clarity, authority, and frankness, Vehicle of Desire: Tracing America's Dependence on Petroleum offers new perspectives in tackling one of the pressing issues of our time.