In this eye-opening book, Professor James Bennett guides readers through centuries of one of the most underrated yet widely used aspects of American life?roads.

Relying on history and economic data?and with a humorous and oftentimes sharp tongue?Bennett explains how important America's highways and byways have been to everything from policymaking to everyday life. Crafting America's roads took persuasion, planning?and more taxes than any politician could have dreamed of. And far too often their realization, thanks, in Bennett's view, to flawed interpretations of the power of eminent domain, required destruction, sometimes on a massive scale, of long-established neighborhoods and important cityscapes.

Likewise, the upkeep of America's highways has been the center of many a policy battle, waged by Republicans and Democrats alike. Yes, we all want roads in good working condition?but just how and who will pay for them remain contentious questions.

Bennett argues persuasively that the road forward just might be a second, but more serious, sustained look at, and local experimentation with, private roads and toll roads.Agree or disagree with him, Bennett has written a significant contribution to America's ongoing debate about how her citizens should traverse, from "sea to shining sea," its fruited plain.

James T. Bennett (1942-2024) was a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, Eminent Scholar, the William P. Snavely Chair of Political Economy and Public Policy in the Department of Economics, and Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Employment Practice and Policy at George Mason University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Case Western Reserve University, and was a McKinsey Scholar at Columbia University, Ford Motor Company Scholar and Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Fellow; and specialized in research related to public policy issues, the economics of government and bureaucracy, labor unions, and health charities.