The title is both a sexist throwback and inaccurate. This is "The Routes of Ted Conover." If you choose to go along with his travels, usually on roads, you'll learn that roads "not only connect but intersect" and that college gives you a more formal education than a road trip will. We learn that a rich Park Avenue couple will be buying lots of mahogany for their apartment flooring upgrade, a set-up apparently needed for Conover to go on a 50-page expedition into the Amazon jungle with Peruvians seeking mahogany trees to cut into planks. They use roads in their endeavors. Further random travels enable the author to give us disconnected simplistic lessons about AIDS in Africa (spread by truckers who use roads), military history (wars require roads), ecology (lots of animals get killed on roads), Israel and Palestine (it's very tense on those roads). The unifying theme is Conover and his travels to cover topics he's not an expert on. How'd he get so lucky? [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/09.]—Margaret Heilbrun (MH), Library Journal

This multiauthor work takes a highly visual look at the history and current state of U.S. and Canadian railroading. The authors are veteran contributors to railroad-oriented publications and exude enthusiasm for rail transportation. In separately authored chapters, they cover important railroad developments, motive power, and operations. Hundreds of photos and illustrations with long, informative captions complement and at times overwhelm the text. Early period photos are of course in black and white, but most from the last 40 years are in color, with trains operating in dramatic settings. With more substance than a typical coffee-table book but of a large enough format to properly display the photos, the work strikes a good balance and will appeal both to train buffs and to more casual readers.—Lawrence Maxted (LM), Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA

Kornweibel (African American history, emeritus, San Diego State Univ.) presents a detailed history of the African American connection with railroads from the days of slavery through the Civil Rights Movement. He explains that railroads were one of the few sources of comparatively decent-paying employment for African Americans. Working for the railroads nonetheless meant coping with exploitation, discrimination, and even violence. Kornweibel devotes entire chapters to various railroad occupations, such as fireman, porter, and cook. He also explains how railroad work permeated African American society and culture. He supplements his text with hundreds of period photos and illustrations of African Americans in railroad settings. This wonderful book dealing forthrightly with one aspect of past racism would be an excellent source for readers interested in either African American or railroad labor history.—LM

Lutz (anthropology & international studies, Brown Univ.) and her sister Fernandez, from a corporate background, combine their skills at "field work" (albeit consisting of interviews with an undefined sampling of 100-plus drivers) and statistical analysis to produce a hard look at the various prices we pay in our American devotion to the automobile. The book does not have one continuous story line to lighten its load of information, but the chapter subheadings and illustrative anecdotes keep readers in tune with the authors' particular drive and primed for the concluding chapter, "A Call to Action," listing ways that we can become part of the solution. Strongly recommended for all willing to consider that we need to "step away from the car."—MH

This book is a kind of mélange of American history-and-lit anecdotes, organized by Perrier around the sections of interstate to which they relate. In a section about I-81, for example, you'll get over two pages about the "culinary heritages" of the various settlers in the regions along what became I-81's path from Tennessee to the Canadian border. The settlers and visitors that she writes about througout were in these locales ahead of the interstates, but one of Perrier's main points is that our interstates evolved from "traces" patterned along the land by Native Americans and by migrating animals long before the white settlers came. So the book's 20th century-sounding title is misleading. Taken on its own terms (if readers have the patience to figure them out), this book is a fine resource for historical anecdote tied to regional America. Armchair or U.S. backroads travelers should also consider.—MH

Journalist Wolmar tackles both how railroads developed worldwide from the 1820s forward and the profound changes they brought. He explains that countries like Italy and Germany used railroads to make themselves into unified nations, while the United States and Canada built railroads to spur settlement and development. Besides Europe and North America, Wolmar examines railroad construction in far-flung places like India, South America, Australia, and Africa. The central story is one of driven railroad builders overcoming the difficulties of terrain, disease, accidents, and finance. Wolmar concludes that rail transportation offers potential solutions for today's pressing global problems of energy and congestion. His work is both a serious history and an adventure story. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the growth and global historical impact of railroads.—LM