Peking to Paris: the world’s first great motor race

History Extra podcast

Immediate Media

History

4.3 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In June 1907, five plucky teams departed the Chinese capital and embarked on a 9,317-mile automobile race to Paris. Traversing scorching deserts and perilous mountain passes in ill-equipped vehicles, the participants regularly risked their lives – but their tenacity would transform attitudes towards the car forever. Kassia St Clair spoke to Jon Bauckham about the story behind the race, and what it can tell us about the wider history of transport, communication and globalisation. (Ad) Kassia St Clair is the author of The Race to the Future: The Adventure that Accelerated the Twentieth Century (John Murray Press, 2023). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Race-Future-Adventure-Accelerated-Twentieth/dp/1529386055/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:47.0	Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from BBC History magazine and BBC History revealed. In June 1907, 2007, five plucky teams departed Peking and embarked on a 9,317 mile automobile race all the way to Paris, traversing
1:20.1	scorching deserts and perilous mountain passes in ill-equipped vehicles.
1:25.6	The participants regularly risked their lives, but their tenacity would transform attitudes
1:31.8	towards the car forever.
1:34.0	The author and historian Cassia St. Clair,
1:37.0	who's written a brand new book on the race,
1:40.0	recently spoke to John Borkham,
1:42.0	about this epic adventure and its enduring legacy today.
1:45.4	Cassia, firstly, thanks for joining me on the History Extra podcast today.
1:48.9	Thank you so much for having me. Now the focus of this book is The Peaking to Paris race of 1907, this hugely ambitious, dangerous automobile challenge spanning thousands of miles.
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