Review of The Highway Revolution: 1895–1925: How the United States Got Out of the Mud by I. B. Holley, Jr.: Carolina Academic Press, Durham, N.C.; 2008; ISBN: 9781594603532; 204 pp.

Reluctance of elected officials to raise taxes for highways; deferred maintenance due to inadequate investment capital; holding to the promise of private investment to provide needed highway capacity; emerging technologies that make road building more efficient; and a growing national need for transportation professionals who will build and operate the future highway network. Sound familiar? As described by Professor Holley in his book on the emergence of the highway industry in the United States, these same issues that characterize today’s transportation profession were also present in the early highway years in the United States. In a remarkably detailed and comprehensive examination of the first $30\text{years}$ of the highway age in America, Professor Holley convincingly describes the major factors that have led to today’s highway network and management structure.

The book spans numerous topics that a transportation professional will find of interest. Chapters include financing strategies that were tried and failed in the early years, and the rationale for the financing system we have today; the evolving materials and construction technology that allowed the rapid expansion of the nation’s road network following World War II; and the information dissemination and training efforts that promoted the emergence of the transportation engineering profession. The book also describes the early efforts at highway contracting and how the process evolved as experience was gained in the best ways of providing the desired product, as well as the evolution in the federal-state partnership that lasts to this day.

What emerges from this book is a story of entrepreneurship, invention, risk taking, and institution-building. It is a story of the emergence of an industry and governmental structure that had significant influence on how the nation developed over the past $100\text{years}$ . It is also a story of how in a remarkably short period of time— $30\text{years}$ —an entire industry was created, a profession was established, and a governance structure was developed to fund and manage one of the largest public works investments in the history of the country.

The book is a must for any reference library holding volumes relating to the history of transportation in the United States. Some chapters, such as the one on the early history of highway finance, would be of interest in advanced undergraduate or graduate transportation planning courses. The chapter on “the contractor” could be included in a course on construction management, and the chapters on construction/materials technologies would provide a nice historical context to modern courses on these topics. As a complete volume, the book provides an interesting history of technology development and adaptation.

Overall, this book is an important contribution to the history of transportation. It also provides important lessons to today’s transportation officials on the pitfalls of avoiding the investment needs associated with creating and maintaining a transportation infrastructure. As the nation recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Interstate Highway System, this book reminds us that much of what we have accomplished rests on a foundation established $100\text{years}$ ago when risk takers and entrepreneurs established the infrastructure for the new-fangled contraption called the automobile. From these first steps, the nation evolved, shaped by the infrastructure and mobility afforded by the automobile—and the world has not been the same since.