Roads and Highways Books

Trust it to mary to tell a romantic love story in a funny and witty ways, I started reading her books with this one and have been hooked since!

The story in the book about Eisenhower crossing the country in 1919 with a caravan of vehicles was very interesting. It showed the deplorable state of roads at that time and why Ike was so dedicated to improving roads when he became president. The role of asphalt in helping to win battles in World War II was also enlightening.

This book, as with Walter Block's other works, is incisive, compelling, and very readable. Unfortunately, Edwin Mellen Press has typeset, printed, and bound the book in a slipshod manner which can only be described as appalling. Many readers have run into expensive volumes published by academic publishers, but this one takes the cake:

-the cloth used for the hardcover on this new book (2006) already looks old and weather-beaten
-my copy literally had a curved spine with the cloth improperly attached (immediately visible to any bibliophile or even non-bibliophile)
-the images on the front and back cover are distorted/pixelated
-the images on the front of the book look to be taken from an early-nineties clip art collection
-the actual innards of the book are of low-quality paper
-the MS Word-esque layout and formatting of the text reminds one of early print-on-demand books, with text that is too small and with too much spacing

This book is chock-full of amazing, fascinating content, but brace yourself for disappointment at the shoddy job by the printer/bindery on this book that is going for over $100 as I write this. I recommend this book to those interested in the subject matter, but others may want to spend their time praying for a second edition whose binding quality matches the quality of the content within.

My wife gave me this map for my birthday, as a token of her desire (or just her willingness) to paddle the entire length of the Aleutian Island chain with me.
I used to live in Alaska, and when I open this map I'm overcome by the memories of its small towns and loneliest roads, and by the excitement of planning our epic Aleutian trip.
If you love Alaska, be warned: this map will put your mind there, and your mind will start relentlessly scheming up ways to get you back there.
The map has good details, and seems fairly complete for the size it is. I think you'd like it.

Yes, this is a map. It is accurate, easy to use, and helped us navigate our way around lower NY and Westchester county. I did have one close encounter with the Bronx, but I can't place blame on the map for that incident.

The book "Road Through Kurdistan" is a fascinating first hand account of A.M. Hamilton, a civil engineer from New Zealand, who built roads in the mountainous Kurdish area of Iraq along the border with Iran. He provides a detailed description of the Iraqi and Kurdish peoples who he worked with in building the roads through incredibly steep and treacherous terrain. It was a formidable effort. I read a first edition (1928) of "Road Through Kurdistan" belonging to a Swedish geotechnical engineer who designed and built two dams in the 1950's for the Iraqi government in essentially the same region. One dam was located at Bekhme on the Greater Zab River north of Arbil and west of Rowanduz, very close to Mr. Hamilton's road. The other dam was at Derbendikhan on a tributary of the Tigris River, northeast of Baghdad. To pass his spare time in Iraq, my Swedish friend, Svante Hjertberg, read A.M. Hamilton's book with delight. Now I had the same joy reading the book and sharing Svante's experiences in Iraq. The fact is, Svante could have written the book himself because he had so many similar experiences, working and traveling in Kurdistan, as Mr. Hamilton. When Saddam Hussein came to power and began killing his enemies, the U.S. engineering companies working for the government of Iraq were forced to pull out. The book contains unique photographs and maps and is a great read for anyone wishing to learn about the terrain and peoples of Kurdistan and the issues of constructing public works facilities in remote, inhospitable countries using indigenous people.

Dr Dorsey has undertaken a challenging and much needed survey of the Iron Age road network in the area known as Ancient Israel. Based on various excavated sites and etymological analysis, he traces the likely routes where direct evidence for roads is no longer available, but also examines treks used through the Roman period and beyond.

Most archaeological analysis centers on the architecture, ashen debris and pottery from particular tells, because these are where people lived and died. Roads are much like sea routes -- frequently traversed, but seldom inhabited -- and so leave precious little to be subsequently excavated. Dorsey thus begins with an analysis of the existing literature and expands on biblical descriptions and commentaries regarding the routes described in ancient times. The necessity of travel by ancient people on religious or commercial ventures, by official representatives on royal errands, or by armies is demonstrated for the biblical period, and would apply to earlier times. Most travel would have been conducted on foot, although donkeys were also used (horses being scarce until David's reign in Iron Age II). Width and quality of the road surfaces lacks definitive judgment, but paved streets were almost certainly restricted to cities, given the costs of foundation and brickwork. Dorsey reasonably asserts that roads would have to be repaired after the winter rains, and indicates that bridges appear not to have been built by the Israelites.

The bulk of the work is devoted to Israel's road network in subdivided sections. While not expressly stated, one gets the impression that while the interconnecting routes provide much more diverse coverage than a layman might expect, that the travel predominated along the plains and valleys closer to the coast than the highlands. This seems to confirm the assertion made by some historians that after the kingdom divided, Samaria, despite its greater wealth and population, was more vulnerable because part of its territory lay in the path of covetous empires seeking control of the coastal highways, whereas Judah in the hinterlands could be ignored for a longer period.

While extensive in scope and frequently providing context with scriptural references to historical descriptions or poetic hymns, selected portions of _Roads_and_Highways_ can be a tedious read for the nonspecialist, being unfamiliar with obscure placenames. I read the book while commuting to work so context couldn't be supplemented by other sources, so eventually I plan to reread it alongside a detailed Bible atlas in the future. Despite my complaint for more context, Dorsey's reference nonetheless constitutes an important addition in a much neglected aspect of biblical studies.

This well organized mile by mile guide to a wonderful historic highway is well worth its small cost. The writer has done a fine job of researching and presenting brief, but very interesting, highlights of the important events and sites along the old road.

If you plan to drive the historic Columbia River Highway, be sure you take this book along.

This book is rich with personal reflection and introspection, as well as valuable insights about the roads travelled and its various destinations and passing points. McMurtry, the author of Lonesome Dove and other novels, recounts his travels on a number of roads that criss-cross the country in various ways. He gives us the ups and downs of the roads, and let's us in on what they have meant for him during his prolific life as a novelist and screenwriter. There is much personal revelation about his childhood and his father, and a lot of reflection and insight about the peoples and places covered by his travels. He is brutally honest in his views on peoples and places he does not like, which, for me, was unexpected but somewhat refreshing in that other travel books can sugar coat local character and place deficiencies. There are travel books written by individuals in search of adventure, or the unique, or the interesting angle. McMurtry's book takes another route, and brings his writer's/novelist's perceptions into play for the benenfit of the reader. Here and there the book takes the tone of a protracted traffic report, or the grumblings of a grumpy, frustrated driver, but overall the book is a literary work, worthy of more than a test drive.

McMurtry provides a good macro level take on various US Interstates. If you're looking for minute details of each route, this book is not for you. But if a brief synopsis of what the whole highway system and the literature particular to each region mean to him sounds like an intriguing topic, I encourage you to check it out.

His observations for the handful of roads with which I am familiar, were spot on, particularly I-35. This gave the rest of his reports instant credibility and allowed me to trust with increased confidence his opinions. I really liked his analogy of the interstate system to rivers (he refers to the beginnings of roads as headwaters and talks about highways' merging like the juncture of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers).

Furtherly enjoyable were his notes on various other writers. As a novice literature enthusiast, his recommendations and anecdotes were very helpful; although, perhaps to a more grizzled book veteran, this wouldn't be nearly as beneficial. Overall, I enjoyed this quick read.

I came to this book with perhaps an unusual background in that I'd not read much, if any, of McMurtry's fiction (although like most filmgoers I'd seen a lot of his overall product). On the other hand, I have read much of the American "on the road" travel literature from Steinbeck to Theroux to Least Heat Moon to Bryson, but I didn't enjoy any of them as much as Larry McMurtry's present book and it's difficult for me to explain why.

It's not simply that the author avoids autobiography and philosophizing, because he does not. When McMurtry goes off on these tangents, however, it's always in measured portions and is never tedious or preachy. He visits with people on the road but, again, doesn't overdo it by attempting to make icons or archetypes out of the ordinary. These sidebars always seem to help support the ongoing narrative and are almost always informative. What McMurtry really does best of all though is to recreate the feel of an Interstate Highway journey. For someone (like myself) who treasures these kind of journeys, there is a cinematic pleasure in reading his writing, which is present whether McMurtry is describing a road I've already traveled or one I may never see. This is actually the sort of text that a lot of photographs might detract from.

As I said, it's really very tough to explain exactly what is so pleasurable about reading this book (actually, I listened to an Audible.com reading and then bought the paperback for reference afterwards) other than to say it's very much like being on the road on a cloudless spring day in the open country, in no hurry to get where you're going, and being happy just to pick up what the author gives along the way. For me that's more than enough to warrant the highest recommendation.

Briefly, I thought the book provided the reader an interesting and fresh perspective on American locales and culture. I found it a valuable alternative to Blue Highways styled narratives - not deriding them - just commenting on the welcome change. Additionally, I found some of his literary references helpful.

'Nuff said. Dense, uninteresting, and a work of complete vanity. I wish I could get away with writing a few hundred pages of blither at the end of a road trip probably on someone else's dime.

Paging through a road atlas is much more exciting.

Ah, Tom Lewis, informing readers that our highway signs are green because of some tests done in Maryland. They were, amazingly, almost black, until a) drivers didn't like black, and b) the proponent of the darkness was found to colorblind.

It's this kind of minutiae that makes Divided Highways a worthwhile read.

The book has a long range, spanning the Important Parts of this nation's history since WW2, giving it somewhat of a watered-down feel. It devolves from a neat history of the politics of roadbuilding to a collection of fairly standard social commentaries once the roads actually start getting built.

Maps would've helped, as it'd be easier to understand the plight of, for example, Saratoga Springs, had I been able to visualize what the interstate had done to the once-touristy city.

Despite these knocks, thank you, Mr. Lewis, for a splendid read.

Too bad I only read one book every couple of weeks. Lewis's "Divided History" is somewhere in between a conventional history of the building of the interstate highway's in the United States and a journalistic account of the builiding of the interstate highway's in the United States. Either way you want to slice it- that's nearly three hundred pages on the building of interstate highway's in the United States. It's a boring book- not just because the subject matter itself, but also because Mr. Lewis has apparently never been west of Denver. Aside from a brief two page write up on the 15 running through Vegas, you would think that the "Interstate Highway System" extends from the Northeast to the Midwest and stops.

I pride myself on not needing a highway to get to or from work, but take perverse pride in living less then two hundred feet from Interstate 5. The interstate system and southern california material culture are intextricably intertwined, though the move to the "freeway" system in Southern California predated the national, federally funded "interstate" system by a couple of decades.

Mostly, I learned from this book that once it got rolling, the Interstate highway project was as formidable a behemoth as the "new deal" ever produced. Ironically the interstate project (and by "interstate highway project" I am referring to the massive federal spending program that was literally entirely responsible for the construction of the interstates everywhere in the United States) was initiated not by Franklin Roosevelt, but by Dwight Eisenhower, who had a sick bed conversion to the cause whilst recooperating from a little light surgery.

Along the way, the Interstate highway project gave sustenance to a generation of civil engineers and bureaucrats (or "technocrats" as Lewis enjoys calling them). There is little to commend this book to the everyday reader- unless that everyday reader is as infatuated with the interstate highway system

For me, one of the interesting things in this very interesting book is how Lewis describes the development of the "highway lobby," under the aegis of the Federal Bureau of Roads, without ever (I believe) calling it a lobby. This is certainly not the main focus of the book, but Lewis makes it clear that the highway system would not have been developed without the efforts of the highway lobby.

Mr. Lewis offers an insightful view to the history of the interstate system in the United States. While the first half of the book is a wonderfully interesting read, I think that the second half of the book becomes bogged down with too much of Lewis's opinion. I agree with his point that the interstate has changed the state of America for the worse; however, his argument would be better served by a factual analysis from which the reader could draw his or her own conclusions, rather than trying to lead us down the path to highway hatred.

The Interstate Highway System forever changed American culture, but the engineers who build it were not thinking about that. They were concentrating on accomplishing the biggest building project in the history of the US. Lewis' book is a chronicle of what they built and how it affected the way we live today. In the pages of his book, we meet some of the people who made it happen. They built huge cloverleaf intersections, mighty elevated freeways, and blasted through mountains to join the east coast with the west coast, north with south.

The book is interesting reading, but goes off in too many directions, giving only a taste of the social changes wrought by the system and the citizen efforts in urban areas like New Orleans and San Francisco to stop ugly highways. The most surprising thing to me was the miscalculation by the highway designers of the social effects. They somehow thought expressways would bring people INTO cities, not thinking that these massive concrete strips would devastate neighborhoods and make it easier for people to live in the suburbs. Gradually, a nation began to learn that highways are not the answer to all our transportation problems.

In my own city -- Detroit -- the building of I-75 tore apart a thriving Hispanic neighborhood in the city, and out in the inner ring suburbs (where I live), a connecting freeway (I-696) was held up for ten years as the tiny municipality of Pleasant Ridge protested the gutting of its small area. In the end, they lost and the highway was built. Today there is a "sound barriar" wall along the freeway, which is down in a ditch, but the constant hum and buzz of the traffic is a steady background noise for the lovely homes that are adjacent to it. Pleasant Ridge is not quite as pleasant as it used to be.

It is good to look to the past to avoid repeating costly mistakes, Yes, we need the Interstate Highway System, and we can honor the memory of President Eisenhower who initiated this ambitious and far-reaching program to bring to America "better roads." The engineering accomplishments are stupendous. I personally watched as I-696 was built and marveled how the engineers tunneled under busy Woodward Avenue and never had to close it down; they built the freeway with little disruption of traffic and I remember the day it opened. It was immediately full of traffic, becoming part of an eventual beltway that will ring Detroit, much like Atlanta and Cinncinati have beltways. I am familiar with those because my family has made many trips down I-75 to Florida. How amazing it is to take one road that passes a few miles from my home in Michigan and just stay on that road all the way to the Sunshine State! I think Tom Lewis admirally captures the mixed feelings we all have about these interstates. Ugly and divisive, yes! Engineering marvels that let us travel safely at high speeds over long distances? You bet!