In this penetrating narrative account, Hessler investigates China's lurch into modernity as he survives the advent of the nation's uniquely terrifying car culture, probes the transformation of village life, and explores China's frantic industrialization.

In Divided Highways, Tom Lewis offers an encompassing account of highway development in the United States. In the early twentieth century Congress created the Bureau of Public Roads to improve roads and the lives of rural Americans. The Bureau was the forerunner of the Interstate Highway System of 1956, which promoted a technocratic approach to modern road building sometimes at the expense of individual lives, regional characteristics, and the landscape....