Episode 4
43 days after the start of the 1907 Peking to Paris car race, the Italian team can see the Volga. Only 48 years earlier, Edwin Drake had established the first modern oil well.
Ostensibly about the world’s first car race, but really about the world at this decisive turning point at the beginning of the 20th century, this amazing tale is packed with fascinating characters while charting pan-continental technological progress.
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More than its many adventures, the Peking to Paris race provided the impetus for profound change. The world of 1907 is poised between the old and the new: communist regimes will replace imperial ones in China and Russia; the telegraph is transforming modern communication and the car will soon displace the horse.
Author Kassia St Clair traces the fascinating stories of two interlocking races - setting the derring-do (and sometimes cheating) of one of the world's first car races against the backdrop of a larger geopolitical and technological rush to the future, as the rivalry grows between countries and empires, building up to the cataclysmic event that changed everything - the First World War.
Written by Kassia St Clair
Abridged by Polly Coles
Read by Adjoa Andoh
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for ±«Óãtv Radio 4
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Broadcasts
- Thu 23 Nov 2023 09:45±«Óãtv Radio 4 FM
- Fri 24 Nov 2023 00:30±«Óãtv Radio 4