Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life [Paperback]

Tom Lewis (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0140267719 | ISBN-13: 978-0140267716 | Publication Date: March 1, 1999

What do Levittown, the 1939 World's Fair, and the Model T have in common? To what invention can the existence of suburban sprawl, toll booths, mall shopping, an oil-obsessed foreign policy, fast food, and air and noise pollution be attributed?

The interstate highway. This landmark enterprise of the 1950s literally changed the face of America for eternity. In 1919, Dwight D. Eisenhower needed sixty-two days to travel from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. Now, eighty years and 42,500 miles of paved roads later, the trip can be made in less than seventy-two hours.

Divided Highways is the fascinating history behind the efforts to make cement trails across America, told through the stories of the people who dreamed up, mapped out, paved-and even tried to stop-the interstate highways. Popular historian Tom Lewis details "man's triumph over nature" in an engaging, sweeping style. Award-winning film director Ken Burns says: "He tells the story of how we get from point A to point B in America. And just as our lives should be, Lewis makes the journey more interesting and meaningful than the destination."

* Basis of the 1997 Peabody Award-winning PBS documentary.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Picture a field of dirt, piled knee high, that covers an area the size of Connecticut, or imagine a concrete sidewalk extending a million miles into space. You will have envisioned, Tom Lewis tells us, the amount of earth moved and the amount of concrete poured to make America's interstate highway system, a network of roads planned far back in the 19th century but completed only a few years ago. The public's view of the interstate system, Lewis writes, has been colored in recent decades by the grim realities of gridlock, smog, and road rage. In their early years, however, these highways seemed to promise the freedom of the open road, a gateway to faraway coasts. Lewis does a fine job of conveying the grandeur of the project, the largest work of civil construction ever undertaken by a democratic power.

Lewis's narrative is peopled with largely unknown figures, among them the little-heralded but critically important engineer Harris MacDonald. MacDonald turned the federal Bureau of Public Roads into a powerful force of social as well as physical engineering and paved the way for the large-scale projects of the Roosevelt and Eisenhower administrations. Lewis, a well-traveled explorer on the byways of technological progress, extends his history well into the past. He describes the building of the first national and post roads, the great parkways that connected such far-flung cities as Winnipeg and Miami, the once rural roads that, over the decades, blossomed into multilane highways--a process that has always depended on what Lewis calls "Americans' faith in technocracy" and their will to shape the future, acre by acre. --Gregory McNamee

From Kirkus Reviews

Similar to his Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (not reviewed), Lewis (English/Skidmore Coll.) has written a tie-in to a PBS documentary (set to air in October) that traces a ubiquitous institution and how it altered everything in its path. Covering more than 42,000 miles, the Interstate Highway System is the longest engineered structure in the world. Dwight Eisenhower discovered once that the cause of the city traffic in which he found himself was the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act, which he had signed as a Cold War military necessity and employment driver. In his inability to foresee the bill's consequences, Eisenhower typified the pioneers of the road system. In their technocratic expertise and lack of human relations skills, they took their cues from influential predecessors, such as the incorruptible and intimidating Thomas Harris MacDonald, who as chief of the Federal Bureau of Public Roads from 1919 to 1953 ``did as much as Henry Ford or Alfred Sloan to put America on wheels,'' according to Lewis. While Lewis is not always careful with his facts (e.g., the first enclosed shopping mall was built in 1956, not in 1947 as he claims) and sometimes employs clich‚s about suburban sterility, he usefully notes that the system did not result merely from a conspiracy of unions, auto associations, and builders, but also expressed Americans' deepest yearnings for ``speed, and space, and privacy.'' The interstates promoted the fortunes of African- Americans (who previously had to ride southern back roads where they were at the mercy of bigots) and women (who used the interstates to break free of social restraints), and boosted entrepreneurs like McDonald's Ray Kroc. Yet the interstates also fostered enough noise pollution, urban decline, and railroad deterioration to spark opposition. While not aspiring to be definitive, Lewis offers a bright, lively account of the greatest public works project in US history. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140267719
• ISBN-13: 978-0140267716
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #130,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting history of the highways, September 28, 1998

By 

Scott Singer ([e-mail]) (Southfield, Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life (Hardcover)

Mr. Lewis' book is an interesting narrative of the building of the interstate highway system. His depictions of the stories leading to the building of the system are interesting and informative, although he spends quite a bit of time (almost too much) background on some of the early players. More examples such as the New Orleans narrative, would have been interesting, such as an in-depth history of the battle for the DC inner beltway. Overall, the book is very good, but a bit slow and heavy in person narratives at times.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative, with too much opinion, October 21, 2002

By 

Bryan W. Pohl (Indianapolis, IN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life (Paperback)

Mr. Lewis offers an insightful view to the history of the interstate system in the United States. While the first half of the book is a wonderfully interesting read, I think that the second half of the book becomes bogged down with too much of Lewis's opinion. I agree with his point that the interstate has changed the state of America for the worse; however, his argument would be better served by a factual analysis from which the reader could draw his or her own conclusions, rather than trying to lead us down the path to highway hatred.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, enlightening and important!, November 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life (Hardcover)

This is the masterpiece that led to the Emmy award winning documentary! A must read!Divided Highways is packed with personal stories and historic markers... read this book and you'll never be bored while driving again. Your entire perspective on the web of roads across America and how they came to be will forever be changed!Highly reccomended!