| Transportation -- History. |
| Roads -- History. |
| Vehicles -- History. |
| Bridges -- History. |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
This is the first comprehensive history of the world's roads, highways, bridges, and the people and vehicles that traverse them, from prehistoric times to the present. Encyclopedic in its scope, fascinating in its details, Ways of the World is a unique work for reference and browsing. Maxwell Lay considers the myriad aspects of roads and their users: the earliest pathways, the rise of wheeled vehicles and animals to pull them, the development of surfaced roads, the motives for road and bridge building, and the rise of cars and their influence on roads, cities, and society. The work is amply illustrated, well indexed and cross-referenced, and includes a chronology of road history and a full bibliography.
Lay, an Australian civil engineer, appreciates the relevance of roads to history. He brings to his study a sense of humor that often exploits the subject's potential bathos. Nonetheless, his deep interest and encyclopedic knowledge of the field show through and result in a book that fills certain lacunae in the history of transportation. Lay starts with the footpath, goes on to cover the technology of asphalt, and delves into bridge building (he even includes a list of extant Roman arched bridges). The internal combustion engine and its predecessors occupy much of his efforts, but he also discusses the evolution of the rules of the road and even street cleaning. There is information here for the high school research paper as well as for the engineer. Moreover, in his extensive footnotes and bibliography, Lay cheerfully gives credit where credit is due. He also adds a time line for those so inclined. Ways of the World is recommended for public libraries and all academic libraries.
It is indispensable for anyone interested in travel, history, geography, transportation, cars, or the history of technology.
Reviews: (3)
Booklist Review
Australian civil engineer Lay couldn't find "a good history of the world's roads," so he decided to write one. Drawing on others' primary research, he seeks "to provide a comprehensive history of roads and bridges and the vehicles that have used them" and to explore how roads have developed in relation to human society. After focusing on pathways and the wheeled vehicles and draft animals that used them, Lay moves on to an analysis of surfaced roads and the motives for their construction, of self-powered vehicles and the new types of surfaces they demanded, of the special issues raised by bridges, and of road-building considerations in the twentieth (and the twenty-first) century. Ways of the World is "a technical history," full of wheel loads, alternative pavements, and traffic control devices; inevitably, however, it also offers useful insights into where people around the world wanted to go, and when and how they decided to get there. Includes chronology, photos, charts, notes, references, and index; an appropriate addition for larger history of technology collections. ~--Mary Carroll
Choice Review
Lay is a civil engineer who has written several books on highways and structural engineering and is associated with the Road Authority of Australia's Victoria State, as well as with the University of Melbourne. This book is largely a popular chronological survey of the world's roadways through the recent past. For a book of this genre, however, it is not sufficiently supported by maps, diagrams, and photographs. Although afficionados of transportation history may find this a useful and even fascinating sourcebook, it is not easy to link Ways of the World (despite the work's many references) to the scholarly literature of the appropriate social sciences. The book may appeal to certain historians, engineers, planners, geographers, and leisure researchers, but it cannot be more broadly recommended as a resource that sheds new light on this massive topic. The book is handsomely produced, but its attractiveness to general readers is probably diminished by its frequent technical elaborations as well as its illustrative limitations. P. O. Muller; University of Miami
Library Journal Review
Lay, an Australian civil engineer, appreciates the relevance of roads to history. He brings to his study a sense of humor that often exploits the subject's potential bathos. Nonetheless, his deep interest and encyclopedic knowledge of the field show through and result in a book that fills certain lacunae in the history of transportation. Lay starts with the footpath, goes on to cover the technology of asphalt, and delves into bridge building (he even includes a list of extant Roman arched bridges). The internal combustion engine and its predecessors occupy much of his efforts, but he also discusses the evolution of the rules of the road and even street cleaning. There is information here for the high school research paper as well as for the engineer. Moreover, in his extensive footnotes and bibliography, Lay cheerfully gives credit where credit is due. He also adds a time line for those so inclined. Ways of the World is recommended for public libraries and all academic libraries.-- Clay Williams, Bluefield State Coll. Lib., W. Va. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.