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The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today
From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of Newjack , an absorbing book about roads and their power to change the world.
Roads bind our world—metaphorically and literally—transforming landscapes and the lives of the people who inhabit them. Roads have unparalleled power to impact communities, unite worlds and sunder them, and reveal the hopes and fears of those who travel them.
With his marvelous eye for detail and his contagious enthusiasm, Ted Conover explores six of these key byways worldwide. In Peru, he traces the journey of a load of rare mahogany over the Andes to its origin, an untracked part of the Amazon basin soon to be traversed by a new east-west route across South America. In East Africa, he visits truckers whose travels have been linked to the worldwide spread of AIDS. In the West Bank, he monitors highway checkpoints with Israeli soldiers and then passes through them with Palestinians, witnessing the injustices and danger borne by both sides. He shuffles down a frozen riverbed with teenagers escaping their Himalayan valley to see how a new road will affect the now-isolated Indian region of Ladakh. From the passenger seat of a new Hyundai piling up the miles, he describes the exuberant upsurge in car culture as highways proliferate across China. And from inside an ambulance, he offers an apocalyptic but precise vision of Lagos, Nigeria, where congestion and chaos on freeways signal the rise of the global megacity.
A spirited, urgent book that reveals the costs and benefits of being connected—how, from ancient Rome to the present, roads have played a crucial role in human life, advancing civilization even as they set it back.
Roads bind our world—metaphorically and literally—transforming landscapes and the lives of the people who inhabit them. Roads have unparalleled power to impact communities, unite worlds and sunder them, and reveal the hopes and fears of those who travel them.
With his marvelous eye for detail and his contagious enthusiasm, Ted Conover explores six of these key byways worldwide. In Peru, he traces the journey of a load of rare mahogany over the Andes to its origin, an untracked part of the Amazon basin soon to be traversed by a new east-west route across South America. In East Africa, he visits truckers whose travels have been linked to the worldwide spread of AIDS. In the West Bank, he monitors highway checkpoints with Israeli soldiers and then passes through them with Palestinians, witnessing the injustices and danger borne by both sides. He shuffles down a frozen riverbed with teenagers escaping their Himalayan valley to see how a new road will affect the now-isolated Indian region of Ladakh. From the passenger seat of a new Hyundai piling up the miles, he describes the exuberant upsurge in car culture as highways proliferate across China. And from inside an ambulance, he offers an apocalyptic but precise vision of Lagos, Nigeria, where congestion and chaos on freeways signal the rise of the global megacity.
A spirited, urgent book that reveals the costs and benefits of being connected—how, from ancient Rome to the present, roads have played a crucial role in human life, advancing civilization even as they set it back.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
57 people are currently reading
1181 people want to read
About the author
Ted Conover
34 books254 followersTed Conover, a "master of experience-based narrative nonfiction" (Publisher's Lunch), is the author of many articles and five books including Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes, Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America's Mexican Migrants, Whiteout: Lost in Aspen, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), and, most recently, The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today. He is a distinguished writer-in-residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
December 25, 2015
"The origin of existence is movement. Immobility can have no part in it, for if existence were immobile, it would return to its source, which is the Void. That is why the voyaging never stops, in this world or the hereafter."
- Ibn al-'Arabi
Ted Conover is a stable mix of William T. Vollmann and Paul Theroux. If I were to Venn diagram Vollmann, Theroux, and Ted Conover, there would be a ∪ between Vollmann and Theroux for fiction and there would be a ∪ for all three for narrative nonfiction, travel, poverty, and trains (Conover: Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes; Vollmann: Riding Toward Everywhere; Theroux: The Great Railway BazaarGhost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway BazaarRiding the Iron Rooster, The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas).
In this book, Conover gives us six roads/trails, each exploring different themes he is trying to develop: development vs the environment (The transportation route of mahogany through Peru from Assis in Acre state, through Puerto Maldonado and Cuzco to Lima/Callao; technically he did this the other direction, but the movement of mahogany is from the Brazil border down to Lima), isolation vs progress (Ladakh-Zanskar down the ice road/root route of the frozen Indus river called the chaddar), military occupation (all the security check points of the West Bank are belong to us), transmission of disease (Kenya/Uganda), social transformation (China), and the future of the city (Lagos, Nigeria).
It was a fascinating, if not often depressing, look at the trade-offs that come with development, exploration, trade, and travel.
- Ibn al-'Arabi
Ted Conover is a stable mix of William T. Vollmann and Paul Theroux. If I were to Venn diagram Vollmann, Theroux, and Ted Conover, there would be a ∪ between Vollmann and Theroux for fiction and there would be a ∪ for all three for narrative nonfiction, travel, poverty, and trains (Conover: Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes; Vollmann: Riding Toward Everywhere; Theroux: The Great Railway BazaarGhost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway BazaarRiding the Iron Rooster, The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas).
In this book, Conover gives us six roads/trails, each exploring different themes he is trying to develop: development vs the environment (The transportation route of mahogany through Peru from Assis in Acre state, through Puerto Maldonado and Cuzco to Lima/Callao; technically he did this the other direction, but the movement of mahogany is from the Brazil border down to Lima), isolation vs progress (Ladakh-Zanskar down the ice road/root route of the frozen Indus river called the chaddar), military occupation (all the security check points of the West Bank are belong to us), transmission of disease (Kenya/Uganda), social transformation (China), and the future of the city (Lagos, Nigeria).
It was a fascinating, if not often depressing, look at the trade-offs that come with development, exploration, trade, and travel.
March 15, 2010
This book was mentioned on NPR and because the author explored roads in places where or near where we had been, I wanted to read it. His premise is about the power of roads to change the world- sometimes in good ways and sometimes in bad ones. In Peru he traveled with loggers who were denuding mahogany in Amazonia and brining it over the Andes to sell. In East Africa, he went with truckers. It is assumed that truckers had brought aids to towns along the routes when they visited whores. He also went into a remote part of the Himalayas in India and walked on ice an impending route to judge how it would affect the culture there. The toughest parts to read however, were visits to both Israeli and Palestine natives. The Israeli side has young soldiers who are bored but have to man check points. The Palestinian people he visited are constantly harrassed and in fear and unable to work because of the check point, both the ones that are always manned and those that are set up all of a sudden in a temporary manner. I truly felt that our pledges to Isreal are supporting an unfair situation. The final segment was to Lagos, Nigeria a place of poor and oil rich that sounds like road traffic may be the worst in the worl.
March 22, 2010
Fascinating thoughts on the duality of roads. We go to Peru, Palestine, China, Kenya, Nigeria, and India to see the good, bad, and ugly of roads and people. We even walk on frozen rivers as well as boat down the water roads of the jungle. Conover is no stranger to adversity and danger and he makes for a great travel companion. The people he meets in the course of these many trips come alive and feel like an acquaintance of yours. Belongs with some of the epic books on travel by Chatwin and Theroux.
September 11, 2019
The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today by Ted Conover (Alfred A. Knopf 2010)(388.1). Ted Conover is one of my favorite authors writing today. I prefer nonfiction; I enjoy stories in which an author says, “let me tell you what I know, what I did, what I saw, or what happened to me.” That's exactly the kind of books Ted Conover writes. I've been with Ted when he worked as a prison guard (Newjack: Guarding Sing-Sing), when he drove a taxi in Aspen (Whiteout: Lost in Aspen), when he became a migrant farm worker (including illegal border crossings from Mexico in Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America's Mexican Migrants), and when he travelled by rail with America's tramps (Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes).
This Ted Conover book is about roads and the changes that opening a new road (literally “an inroad”) brings to bear on a territory/community/population. While new roads bring in modern conveniences and modern ways of life, the resultant loss of a traditional way of life is guaranteed to result.
Conover takes us to Africa, to China, and to South America (Peru). New roads cause the same result each time on each continent. Before I knew it, I had finished the book, and Conover had once again convinced me of the veracity of his premise. My rating: 7/10, finished 11/28/18.
This Ted Conover book is about roads and the changes that opening a new road (literally “an inroad”) brings to bear on a territory/community/population. While new roads bring in modern conveniences and modern ways of life, the resultant loss of a traditional way of life is guaranteed to result.
Conover takes us to Africa, to China, and to South America (Peru). New roads cause the same result each time on each continent. Before I knew it, I had finished the book, and Conover had once again convinced me of the veracity of his premise. My rating: 7/10, finished 11/28/18.
November 9, 2010
The stories in this book, telling the tales of six different roads all over the globe and exploring their implications, actual and potential, for the people who use them or live near them, were amazing and engaging, bringing us to parts of the world that I will almost certainly never experience and introducing us to many insightful and memorable people. Important questions concerning globalization, cultural assimilation, and environmentalism are raised and addressed, sometimes obliquely, by the people the author visits and interviews, as well as by the author himself. This book has a lot going for it. Personally, however, I found something in the author's tone and certain choices he made in narrating the story extremely off-putting. At times, it felt as though he substituted equivocation for the objectivity that he was so clearly striving for--especially in the West Bank chapter. His descriptions of the women with whom he interacted focused too often on their physical attributes and attractiveness (or lack thereof)--especially in the Kenya chapter. In the end, I couldn't get past my personal response to the author's storytelling to enjoy this book as fully as I otherwise might have.
May 22, 2018
Conover writes in the tradition of the great John McPhee, he goes along for the ride and makes the characters he meets as entertaining and informative and the subject he is writing about.
I liked the first half of this book better than the last, so i lost a bit of momentum while reading it, but i enjoyed it thoroughly.
Q: 3
E: 3
I: 3
12
I liked the first half of this book better than the last, so i lost a bit of momentum while reading it, but i enjoyed it thoroughly.
Q: 3
E: 3
I: 3
12
September 16, 2024
A nuanced and human exploration into globalisation
May 29, 2023
Very interesting... but sluggish at times like a tragic jam in Lagos.
June 25, 2025
I might have had a little epiphany about my good buddy Ted ( followers of my reviews may recall that I'm delusional and I think me and Ted are friends because I read his books. Followers of my reviews may also recall that I foolishly believe they even exist) while reading this book.
The epiphany occurred to me in the chapter "Slipping from Shangri-La," when he travelled with teenagers and their elder guides across the Himalayan "chaddar," a lake that freezes once a year and thus creates the only feasible passage from their isolated Zanskari village to their new school.
As he begins his journey with the tribe Ted writes "... just as the leaders started to descend from a flat stretch-- at the moment the town would disappear from sight-- they all stopped, took seven steps backwards, and each tossed a pebble toward home. No one could tell me what their cue had been, nor could anyone really explain what it meant. But it seemed part of the family of gestures that includes Braulio's crossing himself before beginning a truck journey and my own muttering of 'praise God, from whom all blessings flow' (sung in many churches as the doxology, and by my non-devout father as a goodnight prayer to me when I was a boy) when I'm on a plane taking off-- rituals of departure, prayers that ask for safe arrival and return."
Can you guess my epiphany about Ted yet? I'll give you one more hint.
Later on the journey, as the ice starts to melt in some parts of the chaddar and everyone's safety becomes a bit less guaranteed, he writes "sometimes I imagined that our continued progress depended on faith, that we could walk without falling because we *believed* we could, a mass delusion. Sometimes I seemed to have better luck when I didn't look too carefully at the next step. I'd heard ski instructors say, 'Don't focus on your ski,' and skating instructors say, 'Look straight ahead,' and I imagined that some Zanskari chaddar sage had intoned that same advice."
I should really stop expecting people to read my mind. What I'm getting at is this: Ted has spent his entire career immersing himself in the lives of various underdogs-- train-hopping "hoboes" in "Rolling Nowhere," illegal Mexican migrant workers in "Coyotes," corrections officers and inmates in "NewJack," etc. I kept wondering why a hoity toity, college-educated white kid from the suburbs would go on to lead such a life, and now I think I'm starting to get it: perhaps he's been on a quest, maybe a subconscious or semi-conscious one, to figure out what makes us all the same across different cultures, across such seemingly disparate manifestations of human suffering and human triumph.
If you've read his less popular book "Whiteout" then you'll know that the wealthy suffer too-- mostly from their own ego-driven delusions of course, but also from the general difficulty of figuring out the true meaning of their lives. They often wear a heavily botoxed mask to conceal their problems, one that helps them evade truly confronting themselves. Ted's other books are more popular because they center around people who suffer in more obvious, external ways: people who are poor, isolated, ostracized. People who are more forced to confront themselves and life's complexities without an expensive mask to hide behind. Perhaps that's why Ted's been drawn to such people for all these years. Perhaps that's why even out of touch celebrity millionaires believe themselves to be champions of the oppressed. And perhaps that's why I've been so drawn to Ted's books. Maybe we're all struggling to grapple with what it means to be human, and perhaps a lot of the answers can often be found in the kinds of unexpected places Ted explores. If you know how to spot them at least.
As always, I'll give you (the imaginary reader) a summary of some parts of the book that stood out to me (spoiler alert, I guess... The book is basically a compilation of previously published articles [according to the acknowledgements section, that's a big chunk of how he funded his research for the book] so I won't be revealing anything to you that Google can't):
1.) Ted starts the book with a trip through the Peruvian Amazon, where Park Avenue's prized mohogany furnishings are harvested, often illegally. Apparently there's a big debate in Peru (or at least there was when this book was published) between the working class majority who support easing restrictions on harvesting the increasingly limited mohogany supply and a minority of liberals/progressives who are concerned about the very real impact on the environment as well as the likelihood of harvesters spreading modern diseases to uncontacted Amazonian tribes.
One gets the impression, at least from Ted's framing, that both sides are right: on the one hand, harvesting the mahogany isn't sustainable long-term and will have detrimental impacts. On the other hand, people are going to do it anyway, the restrictions make it more perilous for them to do so, and forcing the nation's poor majority to continue suffering in an undeveloped economy so that a handful of tribal Amazonians can go on living like they're in the 1600s is... kind of crazy. As in so many of the world's political conflicts, there isn't actually a fully right answer.
2.) Another thing that stood out to me in the Shangri-La chapter: the villagers had a way of walking fast on the ice without slipping. Something about the way they took steps allowed them to move swiftly without putting a lot of pressure on the ice. Even their height and body types made this easier. It's amazing how much humans adapt over time to whatever environment we're placed in.
3.) Ted made a visit to Israel and Palestine at some point in the 2000s. This whole topic is veeerrryyyy controversial. I'm tempted not to touch it with a ten-foot pole. But I'll say this: I admittedly don't know a lot about the Israel-Palestine dispute (though I pretended to in college. I wonder if anyone was fooled.) The impression I got from the book is that Israel obviously has the upper hand and often wields it with violence and extreme humiliation. It's bad for the Palestinians, obviously, but it also crushes the souls of the Israeli officers who are compelled by law to behave as brutes. On the other hand, apparently... Palestinians are willing to go as far as using women and children (sometimes babies in strollers) to hide bombs. We're talking child suicide-bombers here. Well, infanticide-bombers. Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't imagine any cause sacred enough to justify this.
4.) Capitalist Roaders was by far my personal favorite chapter, and it's all because of the driver Ted hired for his trip through China, a 40-something man named Zhu. This review has gotten way too long, so suffice it to say Zhu spends the whole drive chain-smoking, blasting his CB radio and old "operatic Red Army tunes." Oh, and he drives like a MANIAC!! 😂 Later, when Ted has to share a hotel with him, Zhu makes him leave the room while he spends time with two "massage therapists" from the hotel. Dear god, someone please give this man his own reality show, like YESTERDAY!! 😂😂😂
Anyway, I'm only giving this book three stars because I would say I connected with this book the least compared to all his others. The bar is set pretty high for Ted, because this is still spectacular writing, and if you enjoy these topics then you'll likely appreciate the book even more than I did. Happy reading! :)
The epiphany occurred to me in the chapter "Slipping from Shangri-La," when he travelled with teenagers and their elder guides across the Himalayan "chaddar," a lake that freezes once a year and thus creates the only feasible passage from their isolated Zanskari village to their new school.
As he begins his journey with the tribe Ted writes "... just as the leaders started to descend from a flat stretch-- at the moment the town would disappear from sight-- they all stopped, took seven steps backwards, and each tossed a pebble toward home. No one could tell me what their cue had been, nor could anyone really explain what it meant. But it seemed part of the family of gestures that includes Braulio's crossing himself before beginning a truck journey and my own muttering of 'praise God, from whom all blessings flow' (sung in many churches as the doxology, and by my non-devout father as a goodnight prayer to me when I was a boy) when I'm on a plane taking off-- rituals of departure, prayers that ask for safe arrival and return."
Can you guess my epiphany about Ted yet? I'll give you one more hint.
Later on the journey, as the ice starts to melt in some parts of the chaddar and everyone's safety becomes a bit less guaranteed, he writes "sometimes I imagined that our continued progress depended on faith, that we could walk without falling because we *believed* we could, a mass delusion. Sometimes I seemed to have better luck when I didn't look too carefully at the next step. I'd heard ski instructors say, 'Don't focus on your ski,' and skating instructors say, 'Look straight ahead,' and I imagined that some Zanskari chaddar sage had intoned that same advice."
I should really stop expecting people to read my mind. What I'm getting at is this: Ted has spent his entire career immersing himself in the lives of various underdogs-- train-hopping "hoboes" in "Rolling Nowhere," illegal Mexican migrant workers in "Coyotes," corrections officers and inmates in "NewJack," etc. I kept wondering why a hoity toity, college-educated white kid from the suburbs would go on to lead such a life, and now I think I'm starting to get it: perhaps he's been on a quest, maybe a subconscious or semi-conscious one, to figure out what makes us all the same across different cultures, across such seemingly disparate manifestations of human suffering and human triumph.
If you've read his less popular book "Whiteout" then you'll know that the wealthy suffer too-- mostly from their own ego-driven delusions of course, but also from the general difficulty of figuring out the true meaning of their lives. They often wear a heavily botoxed mask to conceal their problems, one that helps them evade truly confronting themselves. Ted's other books are more popular because they center around people who suffer in more obvious, external ways: people who are poor, isolated, ostracized. People who are more forced to confront themselves and life's complexities without an expensive mask to hide behind. Perhaps that's why Ted's been drawn to such people for all these years. Perhaps that's why even out of touch celebrity millionaires believe themselves to be champions of the oppressed. And perhaps that's why I've been so drawn to Ted's books. Maybe we're all struggling to grapple with what it means to be human, and perhaps a lot of the answers can often be found in the kinds of unexpected places Ted explores. If you know how to spot them at least.
As always, I'll give you (the imaginary reader) a summary of some parts of the book that stood out to me (spoiler alert, I guess... The book is basically a compilation of previously published articles [according to the acknowledgements section, that's a big chunk of how he funded his research for the book] so I won't be revealing anything to you that Google can't):
1.) Ted starts the book with a trip through the Peruvian Amazon, where Park Avenue's prized mohogany furnishings are harvested, often illegally. Apparently there's a big debate in Peru (or at least there was when this book was published) between the working class majority who support easing restrictions on harvesting the increasingly limited mohogany supply and a minority of liberals/progressives who are concerned about the very real impact on the environment as well as the likelihood of harvesters spreading modern diseases to uncontacted Amazonian tribes.
One gets the impression, at least from Ted's framing, that both sides are right: on the one hand, harvesting the mahogany isn't sustainable long-term and will have detrimental impacts. On the other hand, people are going to do it anyway, the restrictions make it more perilous for them to do so, and forcing the nation's poor majority to continue suffering in an undeveloped economy so that a handful of tribal Amazonians can go on living like they're in the 1600s is... kind of crazy. As in so many of the world's political conflicts, there isn't actually a fully right answer.
2.) Another thing that stood out to me in the Shangri-La chapter: the villagers had a way of walking fast on the ice without slipping. Something about the way they took steps allowed them to move swiftly without putting a lot of pressure on the ice. Even their height and body types made this easier. It's amazing how much humans adapt over time to whatever environment we're placed in.
3.) Ted made a visit to Israel and Palestine at some point in the 2000s. This whole topic is veeerrryyyy controversial. I'm tempted not to touch it with a ten-foot pole. But I'll say this: I admittedly don't know a lot about the Israel-Palestine dispute (though I pretended to in college. I wonder if anyone was fooled.) The impression I got from the book is that Israel obviously has the upper hand and often wields it with violence and extreme humiliation. It's bad for the Palestinians, obviously, but it also crushes the souls of the Israeli officers who are compelled by law to behave as brutes. On the other hand, apparently... Palestinians are willing to go as far as using women and children (sometimes babies in strollers) to hide bombs. We're talking child suicide-bombers here. Well, infanticide-bombers. Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't imagine any cause sacred enough to justify this.
4.) Capitalist Roaders was by far my personal favorite chapter, and it's all because of the driver Ted hired for his trip through China, a 40-something man named Zhu. This review has gotten way too long, so suffice it to say Zhu spends the whole drive chain-smoking, blasting his CB radio and old "operatic Red Army tunes." Oh, and he drives like a MANIAC!! 😂 Later, when Ted has to share a hotel with him, Zhu makes him leave the room while he spends time with two "massage therapists" from the hotel. Dear god, someone please give this man his own reality show, like YESTERDAY!! 😂😂😂
Anyway, I'm only giving this book three stars because I would say I connected with this book the least compared to all his others. The bar is set pretty high for Ted, because this is still spectacular writing, and if you enjoy these topics then you'll likely appreciate the book even more than I did. Happy reading! :)
Read
July 27, 2011In the introduction to this new book, Ted Conover describes travel as "an expression of personal curiousity, of a broader education less mediated by received thought." I completely agree, and I now realize that this is exactly why I like Conover's books so much. Through them, he takes me to places and introduces me to people I don't have the courage or means to visit myself.
This is another example of his outstanding storytelling. He again brings to the masses a better understanding of a complex, multi-faceted current cultural issue. By reading this book, you can't help but get a new perspective on the world and our inter-connectedness.
That said, it was my least favorite of all of his works. I believe this is simply because the rest were set in the United States, making it easier to imagine the towns he was in and the people he was around. Selfishly, I hope he comes back to the U.S. for his next book so I can just sit back and enjoy the ride. Ironic, but true.
This is another example of his outstanding storytelling. He again brings to the masses a better understanding of a complex, multi-faceted current cultural issue. By reading this book, you can't help but get a new perspective on the world and our inter-connectedness.
That said, it was my least favorite of all of his works. I believe this is simply because the rest were set in the United States, making it easier to imagine the towns he was in and the people he was around. Selfishly, I hope he comes back to the U.S. for his next book so I can just sit back and enjoy the ride. Ironic, but true.
July 19, 2015
In this non-fiction book, Ted Conover takes us along as he travels on roads in the Amazon, Ladakh (India), Kenya (East Africa), the West Bank (Palestine), China, and Lagos (Nigeria). Each chapter is like a long-form magazine article, with background and details that help satisfy the armchair traveler's yearning for experience--without the bugs, diseases, heat, cold, lack of privacy, and inconsistent access to amenities. In each case, we get to know some of the fellow travelers, and learn a bit about how the road(s) have affected the local culture, economy, environment, and human health.
Conover's writing is engaging and he seems an ethical journalist. This was a book group choice, and although I generally choose fiction, I think I will seek out his "Newjack," about working as a guard at Sing Sing for another opportunity to peek into a different world. Like the best literature, the stories in this book allowed me to view the world from a perspective very different from my own. Recommended.
Conover's writing is engaging and he seems an ethical journalist. This was a book group choice, and although I generally choose fiction, I think I will seek out his "Newjack," about working as a guard at Sing Sing for another opportunity to peek into a different world. Like the best literature, the stories in this book allowed me to view the world from a perspective very different from my own. Recommended.
September 27, 2019
I listened to this audiobook as part of my own personal research for the book I’m working on about backroads travel through North America, and I thought this one, on the history of roads and travel routes in general, and six roads in various parts of the world [including Africa; the Indian Himalayas; Peru; China; Middle East], would be informative. That, plus I am a mega-fan and I love everything I’ve ever read by Ted Conover. While this book is not particularly pertinent to my own story, it did not disappoint.
This is a book about 6 roads he claims have reshaped or are reshaping the world. He joins up with people on them – guides and travelers to whom they matter in an immediate and practical way. They are presented in rough order of increasing complexity: which is also the intentional order in which he traveled them over several years. Each has a theme: development vs. the environment. Isolation vs. progress. Military occupation. Transmission of disease. Social transformation and the future of the city.
He explores questions such as what does connectedness mean, and he shows that not all connections are necessarily good. What follows are sections I’ve quoted from the book which I feel express the underlying themes of this very interesting book.
“Every road is a story of striving. Or profit. Or victory and battle. Or discovery and adventure. Or survival and growth, or simply for livability. Each path reflects our desire to move and connect. Anyone who has benefitted from a better road, a shorter route, a smoother and safer drive, can testify to the importance of good roads. But when humans strive, we also err. And it is hard to build without destroying. Numerous neighborhoods have been wiped out, turning vibrant communities into wastelands. The same roads that carry medicine also hasten the spread of deadly disease [i.e. AIDS in Africa]. The same roads that bring outside connection and knowledge to people starving for them, sometimes spell the end of indigenous cultures. The same routes that help develop the human economy open the way for destruction of the non-human environment. The same roads that carry cars, symbolizing personal freedom, are the setting for the deaths of more people than die in wars, and of untold numbers of animals. And the same roads that introduce us to friends, also provide access to enemies.
“Most things still arrive overland by train or plane, but always substantially by road. 'If you’ve got it, a trucker brought it.' The era of prosperity that followed WWII, along with new mass manufacturing of cars and trucks, prompted unprecedented booms of road constructions in the US, notably the interstate highway system, and in Europe. As cars became available for purchase by millions of people, their use promoted the growth of suburbs. Their demand for petroleum changed the geopolitical arrangement of the world, and their exhaust, and that from other machines, began a warming of the planet’s atmosphere whose ramifications become better understood and more feared every day.”
And finally, this personal sentiment of Conover relates most directly to my own feelings about this topic of roads and their place in my own life: “Being on the road is one of the ways I’ve always felt most alive in the world. Road travel has been a main story of my life, beginning with bicycle tours in the years before I could drive; intense pleasure in getting my driver’s license; and road trips … after I had – mainly during a college career that involved a few detours. Formal college education has never seemed to me sufficient. It has repeatedly sparked in me a visceral longing for the lessons of life outside. College felt like it was about 'imposed learning.' Travel was an expression of personal curiosity… And travel on roads seemed especially the right kind. Coming of age seemed to mean 'leaving the city.' Roads WERE The West in certain ways – civilized, yet often remote and unsupervised. Without question I was influenced by the ethic of the beat and hippie generations that came before me, which saw travel as a masculine prerogative, if not duty. “On the Road”, with its celebration of movement and its equation of travel with poetry got under my skin.”
And this is the reason why I connected to and enjoyed this book.
This is a book about 6 roads he claims have reshaped or are reshaping the world. He joins up with people on them – guides and travelers to whom they matter in an immediate and practical way. They are presented in rough order of increasing complexity: which is also the intentional order in which he traveled them over several years. Each has a theme: development vs. the environment. Isolation vs. progress. Military occupation. Transmission of disease. Social transformation and the future of the city.
He explores questions such as what does connectedness mean, and he shows that not all connections are necessarily good. What follows are sections I’ve quoted from the book which I feel express the underlying themes of this very interesting book.
“Every road is a story of striving. Or profit. Or victory and battle. Or discovery and adventure. Or survival and growth, or simply for livability. Each path reflects our desire to move and connect. Anyone who has benefitted from a better road, a shorter route, a smoother and safer drive, can testify to the importance of good roads. But when humans strive, we also err. And it is hard to build without destroying. Numerous neighborhoods have been wiped out, turning vibrant communities into wastelands. The same roads that carry medicine also hasten the spread of deadly disease [i.e. AIDS in Africa]. The same roads that bring outside connection and knowledge to people starving for them, sometimes spell the end of indigenous cultures. The same routes that help develop the human economy open the way for destruction of the non-human environment. The same roads that carry cars, symbolizing personal freedom, are the setting for the deaths of more people than die in wars, and of untold numbers of animals. And the same roads that introduce us to friends, also provide access to enemies.
“Most things still arrive overland by train or plane, but always substantially by road. 'If you’ve got it, a trucker brought it.' The era of prosperity that followed WWII, along with new mass manufacturing of cars and trucks, prompted unprecedented booms of road constructions in the US, notably the interstate highway system, and in Europe. As cars became available for purchase by millions of people, their use promoted the growth of suburbs. Their demand for petroleum changed the geopolitical arrangement of the world, and their exhaust, and that from other machines, began a warming of the planet’s atmosphere whose ramifications become better understood and more feared every day.”
And finally, this personal sentiment of Conover relates most directly to my own feelings about this topic of roads and their place in my own life: “Being on the road is one of the ways I’ve always felt most alive in the world. Road travel has been a main story of my life, beginning with bicycle tours in the years before I could drive; intense pleasure in getting my driver’s license; and road trips … after I had – mainly during a college career that involved a few detours. Formal college education has never seemed to me sufficient. It has repeatedly sparked in me a visceral longing for the lessons of life outside. College felt like it was about 'imposed learning.' Travel was an expression of personal curiosity… And travel on roads seemed especially the right kind. Coming of age seemed to mean 'leaving the city.' Roads WERE The West in certain ways – civilized, yet often remote and unsupervised. Without question I was influenced by the ethic of the beat and hippie generations that came before me, which saw travel as a masculine prerogative, if not duty. “On the Road”, with its celebration of movement and its equation of travel with poetry got under my skin.”
And this is the reason why I connected to and enjoyed this book.
July 2, 2025
The 2nd.time around I enjoyed this even more. This is travel writing to address various social ills. 1.Peru and it's illegal export of mahogany to highly influential people in NYC.2. A frozen river in India where locals risk slipping and falling to commute on foot in Zanskar to Leh in the north. The road is called the Chadar and sometimes the ice breaks and people are submerged up to their waists. 3. A road from Kenya to Uganda mostly for importing goods from Mombasa to Kampala,where many drivers seek the solace of inexpensive hookers and contract AIDS,because they dont want to wear condoms. 4. A road trip in China with a car club from Beijing to visit such places as the 3 Gorges Dam and Shennongjia.5.A view of life for both Palestinians and Jews,who exist in a state of oppression,where the Jews have unfairly divided the land to weaken the natives ability to be united.6.The best story of all,riding along the highways of Nigeria with an ambulance and facing off with theiving kids, motorcycle accident victims and in general a shortage of access to reasonable medical care. In between the rather lengthy,but enthralling chapters are shorter chapters devoted to rather poetic experiences the author has had or the history of roads and how they represent mankind's steady progress from a quaint,slow moving past to a harried modern existence facilitating progress along with social ills. If you havent read it,Rolling Nowhere by the same author is even better than this adveturous book and is more nuanced and descriptive.
November 22, 2021
Ted Conover is a master of immersive journalism his book "Coyotes" explored crossing the Mexican/US border with migrant workers, his book "New Jack" explored Sing Sing prison as a prison guard. "The Routes of Man" sees Conover explore roads in a number of different settings; a trans-South American highway constantly under construction, highways in China and the growth of car culture and auto-tourism, road checkpoints in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other areas.
There's something interesting in each of these episodes, but unfortunately, there's not really a complete book here. The theme of roads isn't specific enough to hold all these episodes together and any of these sections could be read as a stand-alone piece. If you have an interest in one of these areas read that specific chapter, but unless you're a die hard Conover fan and have read all of his other work you'd be better off picking up one of his other books.
There's something interesting in each of these episodes, but unfortunately, there's not really a complete book here. The theme of roads isn't specific enough to hold all these episodes together and any of these sections could be read as a stand-alone piece. If you have an interest in one of these areas read that specific chapter, but unless you're a die hard Conover fan and have read all of his other work you'd be better off picking up one of his other books.
July 10, 2018
Ted Conover's adventures across the world tied together a multitude of perspectives concerning the influence roads have on them. I never realized how little I considered the origin of the roads I've been traveling my entire life until I read this book. Conover connected the ancient and modern linkages to roads, how civilization and the environment have been altered by them, and how the literal journey along a road illustrates that countries culture and political problems.
I feel as though I visited five new countries over the course of this book, yet I can't wait to walk along some of the same paths Conover travels myself. Well written, interesting facts, incredible people, would recommend.
I feel as though I visited five new countries over the course of this book, yet I can't wait to walk along some of the same paths Conover travels myself. Well written, interesting facts, incredible people, would recommend.
June 10, 2018
I am very stingy with five stars, and rarely award them to nonfiction, but I really liked this book! The prose was engaging, and there was something quite fascinating about how the author chose the particular routes, and how he described interactions with the people of various cultures. I have always believed that the best stories are about people, not places, and this book exemplifies that, defining the routes by the people who take them or are affected by them. I highly recommend this!
June 1, 2020
My first issue with this book is the title.The Routes of Man is gender bias and not acceptable today when we are striving for female inclusiveness. Also most of the women were described in view of their physical attributes. It becomes increasingly difficult to take seriously a tale that is clearly seen through the lens of gender bias.
March 8, 2020
A fun little jaunt of travel adventures united by the theme of 'roads'. Really not about roads, that's a convenient fiction. Rather, very little about roads (no stats, no analysis) and lots of human interest stories. But nicely written and enjoyable.
October 5, 2023
Conover has a knack for finding and illuminating what most would regard as obscure corners of modern lives such as prisons and off-the-grid communities. He provides real insights not only into these areas of modern life but what they say about modern life itself.
August 2, 2017
A nice collection of travel essays: pleasant to read, but little more.
September 17, 2017
NF
302 pages
The author travels and explores the roads of Peru,
East Africa, the West Bank, the Himalayan Valley,
China, Lagos, and Nigeria.
302 pages
The author travels and explores the roads of Peru,
East Africa, the West Bank, the Himalayan Valley,
China, Lagos, and Nigeria.
January 9, 2018
Would have given it five stars but the last chapter didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the book.
June 13, 2021
A different views of people and their lives by traveling roads via trucks, walking, ambulance in Nepal, Lagos, Broadway USA, China,Argentina.
April 1, 2022
Very interesting perspective on how roads connect us
September 12, 2022
Fascinating book!
I think of this book almost every time I take a long trip.
I think of this book almost every time I take a long trip.
April 5, 2023
Way more interesting than expected. Second book I've read by this author ("Cheap Land Colorado" being the other).
November 26, 2023
I would like to finish reading this one day, but obviously it’s been put aside for a really long time
December 20, 2023
The author had a habit of intermixing past events with his narrative which was confusing at times. The focus was also scattered sometimes as the author would include superfluous details and switch from a discussion on roads to politics or other topics. That said, I liked that the author went to multiple countries and studied the different ways in which roads shaped people and societies. Roads can aid in delivering goods across countries, enable military transportation and invasion, connect and unify regions and people, guide towards sacred sites, be a way to relax and have adventures, prevent movement of people, serve as a marketplace and a way to survive.
September 26, 2019
Fascinating!
Read
July 29, 2010BOOK REVIEW
Tracing our roads and the bumps along the way
By Ethan Gilsdorf, Boston Globe Correspondent | February 9, 2010
Roads bring us together. They shape where we live, and how we interact with each other. Choices are forks, decisions are paths. Robert Frost tells us this, and so does Bob Seger.
But “not all connections are good,’’ warns Ted Conover in “The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World, and the Way We Live Today.’’ “Connection means vulnerability.’’ Conover, whose previous books covered prison guards (“Newjack’’), illegal immigrants (“Coyotes’’) and railroad hobos (“Rolling Nowhere’’), examines how roads can bring treasure or trouble.
Each chapter is a separate voyage. In one, he traces mahogany’s origins to the remote forests of the Amazon, and wonders what will be lost if a proposed transoceanic highway links the Brazilian and Peruvian coasts. Other trips take him to East Africa, China, Nigeria, and India - places vulnerable to, or already overrun by, the effects of roads.
Conover’s approach is on-the-ground, reported travelogue. He rides with reckless Chinese drivers; he sleeps in the cabs of Peruvian truckers; he walks for days on ice in Ladakh, India. Run-ins with police, thieves, and border guards attest to Conover’s down-and-dirty dedication.
The best chapters, such as his adventures in the West Bank (balanced by spending time with Israeli soldiers on patrol and Palestinians crossing checkpoints), pose the hardest questions. When Conover travels to Ladakh, he finds a valley so remote that the only route out in wintertime is over a frozen river. A new road will open the valley up to year-round access. Some locals welcomed this. Others feared it: “As life sped up . . . people would have less time to pray. And strangers would arrive, people with different beliefs.’’
Short essays serve as transitional material between each major road trip. These cover memories of driving his dad’s Porsche in high school or a meditation on a pet toad brought from New Hampshire to Manhattan and back. Or they breeze through the history of road building - from ancient Rome to the 19th-century redesign of the Parisian urban grid.
Oddly, the shorter interludes can seem more complete than the longer travelogues. That’s because in the latter, Conover’s account often feels more like dusted-off journal entries than polished prose. We get laundry lists of food eaten, local attire observed, pit stops taken. The reader may be left wondering why these details matter. Some chapter sections peter out inexplicably, with no sense of foreshadowing or conclusion. Ideas are raised that aren’t given adequate attention. In his chapter about China’s embrace of the automobile, Conover describes great changes underfoot. The United States’ 46,000-mile Eisenhower Interstate System will be surpassed in 2035 if China’s planned 53,000 miles of expressway get built. “Lord only know knows where it all could be headed,’’ Conover meekly concludes.
In a chapter about the route from Mombasa, Kenya, to Kampala, Uganda, Conover tackles the tricky subject of how that road helped spread AIDS because of relations between truckers and prostitutes. Following up 11 years after his first trip, he rides shotgun once again with a truck driver named Obadiah, whom he wrote about in a 1993 New Yorker piece “Trucking Through the AIDS Belt.’’ The trip is eye-opening, but reported too anecdotally and narrowly. He might have visited with AIDS experts or cited studies that would help connect the dots.
Conover is a master of first-person, immersion journalism; his road trips are both entertaining and poignant. But in the end, the book doesn’t delve deeply enough into the subject matter promised by the subtitle. Rather, “The Routes of Man’’ may as well have been subtitled, “Remote places I have been, people I met, and the route I took to get there.’’
Ethan Gilsdorf, author of “Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms,’’ can be reached at [email protected].
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Tracing our roads and the bumps along the way
By Ethan Gilsdorf, Boston Globe Correspondent | February 9, 2010
Roads bring us together. They shape where we live, and how we interact with each other. Choices are forks, decisions are paths. Robert Frost tells us this, and so does Bob Seger.
But “not all connections are good,’’ warns Ted Conover in “The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World, and the Way We Live Today.’’ “Connection means vulnerability.’’ Conover, whose previous books covered prison guards (“Newjack’’), illegal immigrants (“Coyotes’’) and railroad hobos (“Rolling Nowhere’’), examines how roads can bring treasure or trouble.
Each chapter is a separate voyage. In one, he traces mahogany’s origins to the remote forests of the Amazon, and wonders what will be lost if a proposed transoceanic highway links the Brazilian and Peruvian coasts. Other trips take him to East Africa, China, Nigeria, and India - places vulnerable to, or already overrun by, the effects of roads.
Conover’s approach is on-the-ground, reported travelogue. He rides with reckless Chinese drivers; he sleeps in the cabs of Peruvian truckers; he walks for days on ice in Ladakh, India. Run-ins with police, thieves, and border guards attest to Conover’s down-and-dirty dedication.
The best chapters, such as his adventures in the West Bank (balanced by spending time with Israeli soldiers on patrol and Palestinians crossing checkpoints), pose the hardest questions. When Conover travels to Ladakh, he finds a valley so remote that the only route out in wintertime is over a frozen river. A new road will open the valley up to year-round access. Some locals welcomed this. Others feared it: “As life sped up . . . people would have less time to pray. And strangers would arrive, people with different beliefs.’’
Short essays serve as transitional material between each major road trip. These cover memories of driving his dad’s Porsche in high school or a meditation on a pet toad brought from New Hampshire to Manhattan and back. Or they breeze through the history of road building - from ancient Rome to the 19th-century redesign of the Parisian urban grid.
Oddly, the shorter interludes can seem more complete than the longer travelogues. That’s because in the latter, Conover’s account often feels more like dusted-off journal entries than polished prose. We get laundry lists of food eaten, local attire observed, pit stops taken. The reader may be left wondering why these details matter. Some chapter sections peter out inexplicably, with no sense of foreshadowing or conclusion. Ideas are raised that aren’t given adequate attention. In his chapter about China’s embrace of the automobile, Conover describes great changes underfoot. The United States’ 46,000-mile Eisenhower Interstate System will be surpassed in 2035 if China’s planned 53,000 miles of expressway get built. “Lord only know knows where it all could be headed,’’ Conover meekly concludes.
In a chapter about the route from Mombasa, Kenya, to Kampala, Uganda, Conover tackles the tricky subject of how that road helped spread AIDS because of relations between truckers and prostitutes. Following up 11 years after his first trip, he rides shotgun once again with a truck driver named Obadiah, whom he wrote about in a 1993 New Yorker piece “Trucking Through the AIDS Belt.’’ The trip is eye-opening, but reported too anecdotally and narrowly. He might have visited with AIDS experts or cited studies that would help connect the dots.
Conover is a master of first-person, immersion journalism; his road trips are both entertaining and poignant. But in the end, the book doesn’t delve deeply enough into the subject matter promised by the subtitle. Rather, “The Routes of Man’’ may as well have been subtitled, “Remote places I have been, people I met, and the route I took to get there.’’
Ethan Gilsdorf, author of “Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms,’’ can be reached at [email protected].
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
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