12 illustrations

This is the French anthropologist as we`ve never heard him before: Marc Augé coined the term ‘non-place’ to describe uniquitous, global airports, hotels and motorways filled with anonymous individuals.

In this new book, he casts his anthropologist’s eye on a subject close to his heart: cycling. In In Praise of the Bicycle, Augé takes us on a personal journey of his own, on a two-wheeled ride around our cities, and on a journey into ourselves.

We all remember the thrill of riding a bike for the first time and the joys of cycling. Here he reminds us that these memories are not just personal, but rooted in a time and a place, in a history that is shared with millions of others.

Part memoir, part manifesto, Augé celebrates cycling as a way of reconnecting with the places in which we live, and, ultimately, as a necessary alternative to our disconnected world.