Edward GarbocziReview of The National Road by Olive W. Burt
Long ago, in graduate school, I drove to the Detroit airport to pick up a new Irish postdoc (a postdoctoral scholar is someone who has his Ph.D. but seeks more experience before getting a permanent position) who was coming to work with my Ph.D. thesis advisor. As we drove various interstate highways from Detroit to East Lansing, Michigan, he said, “Ai, you have a graate ruud system here in the US!” We do have a great road system here in the United States and that did not happen by accident. Building good roads is a sign of a successful civilization. Roads encourage the rule of law, since law enforcement can get around easily and quickly to stop criminals. Roads encourage commerce, since goods can flow quickly from place to place, the example being food from farms to cities. The many-century success of the Roman Empire was based on its excellent road system, which was built skillfully to last. One of the parts of the “fullness of the times” (Ephesians 1:10) for the spread of the gospel was this road system. If you look at the book of Acts, you will see how the early church spread the gospel around the Roman Empire.
The National Road by Olive W. Burt describes how road-building started in the early United States, with emphasis on producing longer roads that would unite east and west and north and south. The reader will see how much of a role the road system, put together by private-public partnerships, united the colonies and states into the United States. Road building involves a combination of technology, land law, rights of way, materials, labor economics, and local and national politics. Hence road building in the US is a microcosm of our history as a country and shows the vision, spirit, and determination of the American people. This high-school level book is a very readable introduction to this broad topic. Finally, I would add that if this book inspires any student to study civil engineering specializing in transportation issues, or to go into the skilled trades of concrete and asphalt construction, that would be great, since the United States definitely needs people like that!