Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway [Hardcover]

Matt Dellinger (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 24, 2010

Interstate 69 is an enlightening journey through the heart of America. With this epic tale of one vast and controversial road project, Matt Dellinger brings to life the country's complex political, social, and economic landscape.

The 1,400-mile extension of I-69 south from Indianapolis, if completed, will connect Canada to Mexico through Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. This so-called "NAFTA Highway" has been in development for two decades, and while segments are under construction today, others may never be built. Eagerly anticipated by many as an economic Godsend, I-69 has also been opposed by environmentalists, farmers, ranchers, anarchists, and others who question both the wisdom of building more highways and the merits of globalization.

Part history, part travelogue, Interstate 69 reveals the surprising story of how this extraordinary undertaking began, introduces us to the array of individuals who have worked tirelessly for years to build the road--or to stop it--and guides us through the many places the highway would transform forever: from sprawling cities like Indianapolis, Houston, and Memphis, to the small rural towns of the Midwestern rust belt, the Mississippi Delta, and South Texas.

In an era when bridges fall, levies fail, and states lease their toll roads to foreign-owned corporations, Americans are realizing the central importance of infrastructure, how it affects our standard of living and quality of life, and how it determines which places prosper and which places fade. This book vividly illustrates that the story of America is indeed the story of transportation--and that story continues.

Matt Dellinger connects these dots with an absorbingly human, on-the-ground examination of our country's struggle with development. Interstate 69 captures the hopes, dreams, and fears surrounding what we build and what we leave behind.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The genesis and subsequent history of the controversial I-69 highway, still underway after 20 years and still being debated, makes for colorful, quirky reading. Already running through Michigan and parts of Indiana, I-69 may continue on through Indianapolis, Memphis, Shreveport, and a few Texas bergs. If completed, it will stretch from Canada to Mexico. Detractors of the undertaking, projected to cost over $30 billion, describe it as a "NAFTA highway," an attempt to diminish U.S. economic primacy in favor of overall North American commerce. "Promoters speak as if their highway would be the mythical rainbow. Spanning the countryside, it would spin off glittering paths to fill pots of gold in every town and hamlet." Dellinger examines the many non-governmental options currently on the table, some involving the controversial practice of allowing foreign companies to lease roads long-term and charge escalating tolls. On the other side of the blacktop, anarchists have riled older, more conservative opponents of the interstate with disruptive and damaging acts. This well-researched book brings an engaging group of idealists, politicians, and observers to the middle of one of America's most famous stretches of road.
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Review

“From the first page Matt Dellinger draws a compellingly written narrative that is not only hard to put down but is sweeping in its context. America's history, and its future, breathes in these pages.”

—Ken Auletta, author Googled: The End of the World as We Know It

“Interstate 69 is not just about highways. It's about Americans deciding on their future. The politics and arguments about this one proposed highway may or may not lead us somewhere—but like any great journey, it's the trip that's the thing.”

—Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

“Whether I-69 is ever built or not, it has provided Matt Dellinger a good route into the middle of our country, a fascinating and often-neglected place. His story of an imagined road, its boosters and its discontents speaks eloquently of the deep changes shaking up America today. This is an affectionate, hard-won, and skillfully-made book, filled with the pleasures of original discovery.”

—Ian Frazier, author of Great Plains and The Rez

“A rollicking dispatch from the heartland as great plans are laid for a mega-highway just at the moment when America runs out of gas. Matt Dellinger is a first-rate reporter and an agile portraitist who gives us a rare look at the loony shenanigans that shape our landscape and our society.”

—James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency

“A great journey, with sharp reporting and fine writing and a genuine feel for an America we don't often notice. With Dellinger at the wheel, the saga of the unfinished interstate becomes a wonderful tale.”

Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief

“Interstate 69 is about a road that doesn't exist, and probably never will, and we learn anew about small town America whose fortunes ebbed and flowed with the advent of the superhighway. Dellinger has given us a new way to understand—and enjoy—our history.”

 —Seymour Hersh, author of Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1st edition (August 24, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416542493
• ISBN-13: 978-1416542490
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #551,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Matt Dellinger has written for The New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Oxford American, Smithsonian, The Wall Street Journal magazine, and The New York Times, and has reported on transportation and planning for the public radio program The Takeaway. He worked for ten years on staff at The New Yorker as an illustrations editor, the magazine's first-ever multimedia editor, and the producer and host of The New Yorker Out Loud, the magazine's first weekly podcast. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars well written, unbiased, historically accurate August 28, 2010

By lostintranslation

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Interstate 69 is one of the finest works of historical non-fiction that I have read in many years. Not only does Dellinger offer an accurate and unbiased account of the history of I-69, he also skillfully paints a larger picture of American politics, geography, & anthropology. Dellinger captivates with his succinct, narrative style. I highly recommend this book as it is as educational as it is entertaining.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, Well Researched September 3, 2010

By J. Dellinger

Format:Hardcover

"Where we're going, we don't need roads." - Doctor Emmett Brown

Having spent nearly a decade living in Bloomington I was already well-versed in the Hoosier portion of the Interstate 69 story...or so I thought. It turns out I didn't know the half of it (quite literally).

"Interstate 69" is a compelling, highly informative tour of the (proposed) route for the so-called NAFTA highway. It works as both history and cultural anthropology, and prompts a lot of smart questions about the direction of our transportation systems and federal/state funding priorities.

If that sounds like a dry, policy-heavy tome, it shouldn't. The author uses the small, human stories of the individuals and (often floundering) communities along the route to paint the larger picture. It's highly engaging reading that fans of relevant, well-crafted non-fiction are sure to appreciate.

(Full disclosure: Yes, I am related to the author. No, I would not change a word if this review were that not the case.)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I-69, to be or not to be? That is the question... January 25, 2011

By James Denny

Format:Hardcover

Will Interstate 69 be built? Can Federal funding be found to make this "last" freeway of the Eisenhower Era? That is the question!

Matt Dellinger explores in depth the subject of American transportation. His central focus is whether I-69 will be built. The proposed route: from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, passing through the states of Texas, Louisana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan. The segment from Indianapolis to Port Huron, Michigan is the only part of I-69 that has actually been built.

Not one of these states is willing or prepared to pay for its section of this proposed highway whose overall cost is now estimated at a minimum of 30 billion dollars. Aging transportation planners in these states fondly remember the Age of Eisenhower when the Federal Government picked up a staggering 90 percent of freeway construction costs.

The 21st century is a different era. Obvious to most, but not to hard-core highway-booster types who hunger to feed at the Federal Government trough, the highway construction manna of the 50's, 60's and 70's is long gone.

A second and more fundamental question is should I-69 be built at all, irrespective of who is willing pay for it?

Author Matt Dellinger does a great job of exposing how blatant political decisions in the past have funded highways, railroads, canals and other transportation projects throughout American history. The fact that some towns and cities get "blessed" with a new transportation link can be seen as more about influence peddling than as wise and balanced transportation decisions.

Providing a blunt example of influence peddling, Dellinger exposes the influence of former House Leader Tom DeLay, recently convicted of using national campaign funds to influence political decisions in the Texas legislature. DeLay is now facing a three-year prison term. "Insider" Tom DeLay was in cahoots with his brother Randy DeLay, a professional lobbyist, who "worked from the outside" for building I-69 in Texas.

Dellinger provides inset maps of the proposed I-69 corridor that are keyed to his narrative. His research is exhaustive. When I picked up this book I intended only to skim through it. Instead, I read it cover-to-cover. I give it four stars and not five only because tighter editing would have eliminated some redundancies. Good, informative read.