Highway: America's Endless Dream [Paperback]

Bernd Polster (Author), Phil Patton (Author), Jeff Brouws (Author, Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1997

The growth of highways in the U.S. during the early 20th century marked the beginning of an unprecedented American mobility. The democratic, open nature of the road redefined the American way of life and forever changed the way the average American perceives this country. This collection of original full-color photos and historical essays examines the landscape and roadside culture of America's great highways. 137 photos, 100 in color.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

There is something distinctive, revealing, and often quite sad about the life along America's major highways. The truck stops, motels, and idiosyncratic roadside attractions are all uniquely American, as is the fate of the towns that grew up along a stretch of highway, succeeded by servicing travelers, and dwindled once newer highways carried interstate travelers elsewhere. Highway is an intermittently effective tour of these precincts, featuring old photographs of roads and (primarily western) highway communities, recent color photographs by Jeff Brouws, and essays by Patton and Polster on the history and influence of some of America's interstates, and on literature and films in which the highway has figured. The essays provide a useful overview, but break no new ground. Some of Brouws's photographs--of abandoned motels and gas stations, dusty small-town storefronts, roads on which neon signs seem the only animate thing--are startling and moving. Too often, though, the view here is one-sided: People seem purposefully exiled from the shots, and the emphasis on decay begins to feel a little self-indulgent and dogmatic. Robert Frank, who usually placed people in even his bleakest American landscapes, remains the master of higway art. Much here seems rather superficial. (100 color, 37 b&w photos) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Stewart Tabori & Chang (August 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556706049
• ISBN-13: 978-1556706042
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 9.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,301,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a mundane revelation...best on the lot, August 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Highway: America's Endless Dream (Paperback)

Brouws seems to have acquired a photographer's eye that can look behind and around and through the grime and the dust of the highway's edge, and find an unheralded harmony in the play of concrete, neon, and metal. Looking at the photographs one can recognise what was always there, but always overlooked. These are the backdrops to our highway dreams, and so it makes good sense to see these without putting people into the foreground. The essays are cogent and work well as an introduction to the photos. Buy the book, and you'll be seeing the highway in a different light from then on.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Very Visually Satisfying, February 8, 2007

By 

Guy Waverley (Earth) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Highway: America's Endless Dream (Paperback)

Although the book does have a few nice photographs in it and the book does, in fact, catch the "American Dream gone awry," I was disappointed with the book as a whole. This is not to say that it is a bad book. The problem I had was that even though the book is 10.8" x 9.8" many of the pictures are very small. Being a member of the visual generation this book failed to satisfy me with much optical gratification. I would have preferred a book with large images that would grab my attention and bring me back to the memories of days gone by.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant and sublime photography, March 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Highway: America's Endless Dream (Paperback)

Brouws is one of my favorite contemporary photograper and this book proves why. HIGHWAY admirably displays his subtle use of color, elegant compositional eye, and an underlying elegiac tone which he captures, often depicting an American Dream gone awry. Many of the photos seem infused with a Hopper-esque quality; many Springsteen tunes come to mind as well. The inclusion of FSA photographs from the 1930s, and the well-wriiten essays by Polster and Patton, make for a compelling product. This book is a classic and highly recommended.