ONRAMPS AND OVERPASSES: A Cultural History of Interstate Travel.
Edition: First printing.
Tallahassee: University Press of Florida, (2009) dj. Hardcover first edition - A book which is both fun to read and which can serve as a reference guide on a long road trip. "History at the next exit - whatever interstate you're driving on. Designed as a defense and commercial network to link Washington, D.C., with state capitals, the interstate highway system carries more traffic than anyone could have imagined fifty years ago. Lost today in the rush to get from point A to point B - with restaurants, hotels, and gas stations along the way more or less interchangeable from exit to exit--is the fact that these roads were laid down along ancient routes. Route numbers have replaced colorful descriptors, so the Oregon Trail is now I-80, and travelers tracing portions of the Santa Fe Trail do so along I-25. A book which seeks to remind us of what we have lost and that this history is often as close as the next exit, with stories of Davey Crockett, Horace Greely, and Charles Dickens, of women in hoop skirts, the search for eighteenth-century fast food, and nineteenth-century 'truckers.' A book which restores the beauty and history of the American landscape we all too often ignore at 65 miles per hour." Illustrated throughout with vintage photographs and maps. Notes, bibliography, index. xiv, 418 pp. ISBN: 978-0813033983.
Condition: Very near fine in a like dustjacket (one corner slightly bumped)