'The Routes of Man': the high adventure and deeper meaning of roads

As author Ted Conover entered the realm of book publishing, roads figured in his writing. Practicing high-risk participant journalism, he found roads (including railroads) that would take him across the United States of America so he could research his book "Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails With America's Hoboes"; that would take him from country to country ("Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders With America's Mexican Migrants"); that would take him into the mountains ("Whiteout: Lost in Aspen"); that would take him to the gates of Sing Sing Prison where, as an undercover journalist, he spent a year as a correctional officer ("Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing").

Conover's new book, "The Routes of Man: How Roads are Changing the World, and the Way We Live Today" (Knopf, 352 pp., $26.95), is literally about roads — primarily roads in Peru, India, Kenya, Israel/Palestine, China and Nigeria. Conover has thought deeply about the multiple meanings of roads built starting thousands of years ago (including the Appian Way and 18 other roads leading out of ancient Rome) until yesterday, then has placed himself in peril to travel dangerous roads of today — searching for anecdotes, searching for the meaning of those anecdotes.

As a result, readers can consume the ever-compelling book on at least two levels: a philosophical level and an individual adventure level. As Conover notes, "Each [chapter] is a story and a meditation."

In Peru, where the Inca civilization built intricate, long-lasting roads unlike any in the universe at that time, Conover travels treacherous roads that lead to a remote area where increasingly endangered mahogany wood is cut, often illegally, and shipped to wealthy consumers in the United States. His theme: how roads play a role in pitting development versus the environment.

In mountainous Buddhist portions of an Indian state and of Kashmir, Conover follows students trekking a 40-mile ice road so they can leave their isolated town to obtain better education. His theme: how roads become tied up in isolation versus progress, how the fostering of outside connections can cause harm to indigenous cultures.

In Kenya, Conover, reuniting with a driver he accompanied in the early 1990s, follows the trail of truckers traversing the African continent, hauling goods for export and returning with goods from imports but also engaging in unprotected sex with prostitutes and thus spreading AIDS. His theme: how roads, even as they transport medicine, stimulate transmission of deadly disease.

In Jerusalem and the West Bank, Conover is interested in how the Israelis control the Palestinian population throughout attempts at reconciliation punctuated by faith-based murder. His theme: how roads figure in to the calculations of military occupation.

In China, Conover documents how the country's road building boom has accommodated the automobile owning boom. His theme: how roads hasten social transformation within cities, within rural areas and between the urban-countryside divide — and, not so incidentally, become the setting for deaths. During one recent national holiday weekend alone, Conover learned that more than 6,000 fatalities occurred on Chinese roads.

In Nigeria, especially its teeming capital of Lagos, Conover looks at the future of urbanism, with a tilt toward lawless urbanism. His theme: the future of cities.

Lagos is certainly not Seattle, but when it comes to roads, urban areas are perhaps more similar than different. "With near unanimity, we proclaim [roads'] usefulness," Conover says. "They are the human world's circulatory system." But he cannot help asking, simultaneously, about roads, "Where are they taking us?"