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Title: American Road: The Story of an Epic Transcontinental Journey at the Dawn of the Motor Age by Pete Davies ISBN: 0-8050-6883-X Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 03 July, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.22 (9 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Epic Journey
Comment: "The American Road" is a fascinating historical work that chronicles an event that was of monumental importance that has been most forgotten in the public consciousness. In the summer of 1919, a U.S. Army convoy left Washington, D.C., bound for San Francisco. Two months later it arrived at its destination having fought incredible obstacles and hardships along the way. In doing so, the convoy dramatically pointed out to a nation just emrging from the first World War and entering the automobile age the need for good roads.
Author Pete Davies does a decent job of resurrecting the memory of The First Transcontinental Motor Train. He describes the trip in detail and recounts the contribution of its most colorful participants, including a young lieutenant colonel named Dwight D. Eisenhower. The event was a spectacle all along the route, and even generated controversy between communities either included or left off the right of way. For most of the journey, the convoy followed the "Lincoln Highway," a privately funded project that was the first bicoastal road, but in 1919 in many places was actually little more than a line on the map.
As a work of history, "American Road" completes its mission well enough. Author Davies is a decent storyteller and he does a good job of setting the historical context and showing how the event was crucial to the development of America's national road system. The book's main drawback is that Davies chose to focus much of his attention on the relatively unintersting local political controversies along the route and not enough on the stories of individual soldiers in the convoy. Even the colorful "Ike" gets only a scant few pages of coverage in total. Also underutilized is the author's accounts of what the route looks like today, which are sprinkled in here and there without much rhyme or reason. On the plus side, the book contains a generous helping of photographs and a helpful route map on the inside covers.
Overall, a decent historical work that serves to rekindle the memory of the dawn of the American motor age.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Automobile Drives the Future
Comment: Pete Davies has done a spectacular job of capturing the enormity of this history-making undertaking. When you consider that less than 100 years ago there were less than 10 miles of paved road in the whole country and contrast that with today, it's mind-boggling what has been accomplished in such a short time.
And it's all because the automobile came along and people needed passable roads on which to drive them. The Trans-Continental Convoy held up an unavoidable magnifying glass for the citizens (and politicians) of the US so they would not need to ask, "What's wrong with our roads?" It became crystal clear. If you wanted your town and state to develop, you'd better get on the Good Roads bandwagon.
This book was particularly interesting to me because my father drove these trucks during World War One from the automotive centers in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana to Baltimore, using the Lincoln Highway. From Baltimore they were shipped overseas. In one of his letters, he remarked that it had been raining for three days straight, but they got by fairly well because most roads were gravel.
Although I'm sure the eastern most portions of the Lincoln Highway were probably in better repair than the western parts, The American Road gave me a good picture of what my father was up against.
The next time you drive down the Interstate, you can thank the foresight of some people in Detroit, the keen observation of a young Lt. Col. Dwight Eisenhower, and the sheer grit of the Convoy drivers, for showing the nation what had to be done.
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting take on modern American history
Comment: Pete Davies has provided us with an interesting view on American history with his book American Road. I found the book interesting and engrossing, though Davies had a tendancy at times to divert off to a tangent that does not seem to be related to the topic at hand. Most of the topics he includes in the book give the reader a better understanding of how critical this transcontinental journey really was in forming modern America.
Davies' research is top-notch; he relies on primary sources including journals and newspaper accounts written at the time of the events.
The book is a great chronicle of early 20th Century Americana from a social perspective, including the trials and tribulations faced by the individuals during the cross-country journey.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the formation of modern America's motor age, but if you're only interested in understanding the Army's piece in this, you should consider skipping this book, because it doesn't do much with the military piece, despite the fact that the U.S. Army was responsible for the motorcade.
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Title: The Lincoln Highway: Main Street across America by Drake Hokanson ISBN: 0877456763 Publisher: University of Iowa Press Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Horatio's Drive : America's First Road Trip by Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns ISBN: 037541536X Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 08 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life by Tom Lewis ISBN: 0140267719 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: March, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Soil Mechanics and Foundations by Muni Budhu ISBN: 047125231X Publisher: Wiley Text Books Pub. Date: 29 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $114.95 |
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Title: Getting There: The Epic Struggle Between Road and Rail in the American Century by Stephen B. Goddard ISBN: 0226300439 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: October, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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