Book Review: Road Through Time – 9780889774773

Road Through Time: The Story of Humanity on the Move
By Mary Soderstrom
ISBN: 9780889774773
Price: $22.95
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Review by Job Patstone

Many of us drive or walk down roads every day without ever giving much thought to how they evolved. In Road Through Time, author Mary Soderstrom describes the creation and expansion of the modern road system. She tackles the origin of roads and why and when they were built. She goes back to about 25000 BCE, when it is believed that people began to migrate from Africa across Europe and Asia, seeking food and land, and inadvertently created paths that became the first roads.

By examining the invention of roads and their origins, readers can better understand human migration in general. Why did people go where they did, when they did? We also discover how the use of horses and carriages increased the demand for bigger and better road systems, eventually leading to the development of engineering standards.

We can still see remnants of the Appian Way today, but roads existed long before that Roman thoroughfare. Archeological digs around the world are uncovering more and more remnants of ancient roads. Most of us take our highways and byways for granted, but this book explores the origins of roads and leads us on a journey through history that neither we nor our ancestors ever anticipated.

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