There is something forever exciting about a road. It is always going somewhere and always changing. It climbs sharply up a hill or curves around the shore of a lake. It dips under a bridge and out again. And, day or night, it is busy, carrying people bound on their countless errands.

Always, everywhere, roads have served man's need. They have a long and colorful history. The ancient caravan routes across the desert wastes of Asia; the straight, carefully built highways along which tramped the legions of Rome; the winding forest trails of the Indians; the first muddy pioneer routes over the Appalachian Mountains; and the long trails beyond the Mississippi all have their place in the story of roads, as do today's sleek broad highways.

In THE FIRST BOOK OF ROADS is the romance of roads past and present, with an account of our modern highways: how they are planned, how they are built, what machines are used in building then, what the roads of the future will be like.

Handsome pictures and diagrams by W. R. Lohse add to the drama of the story.

From the dust jacket