The North American International Automobile Show, known as the Detroit Auto Show around here, opens to the public on Monday, January 19. The first Detroit Auto Show was held in 1907. What began as a local show is now international in scope.

The car: the evolution of the beautiful machine by Rod Green

Merrily we roll along [videodisc]: The early days of the automobile by NBC News Productions

Motorcars of the classic era by Michael Furman

Fordlandia : the rise and fall of Henry Ford's forgotten jungle city by Greg Grandin documents Henry Ford's 1927 purchase of a Connecticut-sized plot of land in Brazil for the purpose of growing rubber. The South American leaf blight and the advent of synthetic rubbers forced the company to abandon Fordlandia in 1945, long after Ford had poured millions of dollars and years of strenuous effort into the project. Grandin argues that this was more than an economic venture. It was a missionary application of Ford-style capitalism--high wages, humane benefits, moral improvement to a backward land.