The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today

Read the book at the local library but knew I wanted to read it again and loan to a friend so I bought it. I will be keeping this book as it is engaging and insightful.

Fascinating way of looking at the world. A unique way into cultures. Well written and not like any other book I can think of.

I absolutely love everything he writes, always real. Besides of interesting, it's well written, entertaining and even funny!Read it!

"While Conover examines troubling issues that road-building can entail--pitting development against environmental concerns, or isolation against connectivity and possible erasure of local cultures, for example--it is his strong sense of life's clock ticking all around him that lifts his reporting above the ranks of travel-as-usual literature . ."The building of new roads provokes mixed feelings for the wilderness that they replace and the never ending question of whether this is really progress. Roads change landscapes and both add and detract from the lives of the people nearby. In rich detail Ted Conover explores six routes and the impact of new roads. Included are just a few powerful pictures and thankfully some maps. But it's not just the geography and economics: he keeps a strong focus on the hopes and fears of those who travel these routes.In Peru, a load of rare mahogany makes its way over the Andes from an untracked part of the Amazon basin... He hitches rides in unreliable, body-battering trucks on narrow winding roads up the sides of mountains then boats down backwaters to witness illegal logging. Finally, he stays at a hotel for eco-tourists. But a new east-west route across South America will soon cross this whole area changing everything.In India, he walks for days on ice down a frozen riverbed with teenagers escaping their cul-de-sac Himalayan valley for more education: most will seldom return. Conover's high tech cold weather gear contrasts with the maroon goncha robes of the older men and then blends into the transitional garb of girls in traditional colorful garments and pink sneakers and boys in jeans and parkas.In East Africa, he visits truckers whose travels have been linked to the worldwide spread of AIDS. One can't help but like Obadiah who in his own words "is the best driver there is." Border bribery, the plight of women in the sex trade, and Uganda's green hills are part of the story as are the many "uncertain" causes of death.In the West Bank, Conover witnesses the injustices as Palestinian commuters wait in the sun at checkpoints, change cabs, sneak through yards, and are mysteriously detained. Roads for "Israelis only" divide not only farmers from their fields but the country from lasting peace. Then with Israeli soldiers Conover monitors the same checkpoints and rides on night patrols always alert for rock throwing, guns, and bombs. The weariness and hassle of it all exhausts and fascinates the reader at the same time.The Chinese road trip is lighthearted after Israel. This "modern version of a caravan" delights in the freedom of the open road (but without the US infrastructure for refueling, eating, and sleeping. Miles pile up as reckless drivers ride the shoulders and ignore both speed limits and police. No wonder Chinese highways are the deadliest in the world. But twelve hours at the wheel is fun for these guys: individuals in China have owned private cars only since the turn of the millennium.Lastly are the roads are in Lagos, Nigeria where bumper-to-bumper traffic "a go-slow" becomes an instant market and armed robbers and driving at night are synonymous. This huge immensely crowded (and still growing) African city has redefined traffic chaos. From inside one of only twenty-one ambulances in the city the reader gets a look at life in a global megacity. Even rush hour in Houston is looking good.Conover's reporting is close to the ground. One can't help but think that he is a brave guy with intestines of steel who, more than a few times would have really liked a long hot shower. But he largely keeps himself to himself focusing instead on the people and cultures being impacted by the encroachment from the routes of man. "I don't want to be rude," he says at one point "but I really would like to live to the end of this trip." It's an eye opening and entertaining read.

ON FINIT PAR S'ENNUYER TRES VITE ET L'ON NE RETIENT PAS BEAUCOUP CE QUI SE PASSE ET POURTANT SERAIT FONDAMENTAL POUR COMPRENDRE L'IMPACT DE L'HUMANITE SUR L'ENVIRONNEMENT ET LA PLANETE

Picked this up for a recent plane flight to Africa, thinking it would give me plenty to read on the way over. Unfortunately, I screwed up - as I read the entire book on one flight, and was stuck with nothing but cheesy movies and in flight magazines for the second flight. Bad for me, but good for my review of the book. I loved it.Conover follows several "roads" throughout the world, and highlights the impact that these roads are having on the people. He typically withholds judgment and just tells the story, but at times it is clear that he is both thrilled by and challenged by the prospect of these roads. They open up new markets, allow people to buy and sell goods, and generally integrate people better into the capitalist, western culture. However, this is usually at some expense of their native culture - whether it is people in northern India, who for centuries have had to use a frozen river to access lands outside their own, or the burgeoning car culture of China - both are challenging what it means to traditionally live in those areas.Overall, I was engaged and excited at many points. I found myself looking at roads in my area of Africa and imagining the impact they've had, as well as the roads back home. This book not only was an enjoyable read, it told a story that bears further thought and introspection.

With keen-eyed Ted Conover as your guide, "Routes of Man" offers up the best kind of non-fiction writing: the ride-along. The journey might be in a bus, in the back of an ambulance or in a Nigerian danfo (shared minivan), but for 302 fascinating pages you get to hear, taste, smell and sense Peru, India, Kenya, Israel, China and Nigeria. The idea of looking at how roads change cultures and alter civilization is brilliant. The execution is just as nifty.If you're not familiar with the Conover style, you should be. His is the kind of effortless writing, reporting and anthropology that glides along. You breathe in moments by his side. In "Newjack," we spent a year with Conover as a Sing-Sing prison guard. In "Coyotes," we travelled with immigrants north from Mexico to the southwestern United States. In "Rolling Nowhere," we rode the rails with hoboes across the country.In "Routes," the utter humanity continues to shine through --the people we meet along the way. Before we know it, we're drinking tea in simple huts in the Himalayas, we are paddling up river toward remote mahogany camps in the Amazon, and we are bombing around the countryside with Chinese businessmen who crave the speed, power and freedom that only a car ride can offer.Each of the journeys is interspersed with mini-essays about roads and their meaning, impact and importance; these form a kind of glue to the global adventures.What kick-starts the travels is Conover's open spirit. He minimizes reporting on the work it takes to set up these stories (one can only imagine) and jumps straight to the moment so we can spend more time inside the cultures being impacted by the encroachment from the routes of man. While the style is first-person, Conover slips in and out of the stories with ease, always shining the spotlight on his subjects first. The stories are at turns harrowing, funny, heartfelt, touching, terrifying (reckless speeding in China) or just plain tense ("area boys" in Lagos getting ready to attack your shared ride). Conover de-constructs border crossings in the maze around the West Bank, checks on the changes in how AIDS is perceived along truck routes in Africa, and takes us down a "road" that is for the time being a frozen (part of the year) remote Indian river.The writing is uniformly rich and detailed, whether Conover is writing about the roads and the vehicles or the communities they lead to: "The village was an intriguing medieval warren of mud-brick houses three and four stories high, some whitewashed, uneven and irregular. Roofs were flat and often piled high with hay and the dried animal dung that fueled stoves; tattered strings of prayer flags fluttered over many. The ground level was devoted to animals: sheltered spaces where goats and oxen and dzos (a yak-cow mix) could spend the winter. Every day they were walked to water. Not all the houses were stand-alone; many adjoined others, sharing walls (and probably some heat). There was no electricity except for a few small solar-powered, fluorescent fixtures distributed by the government."Go for a ride with Ted Conover and ponder changes wrought by the ever-increasing tentacles of intrusion--the changes that are roads (of all sorts).