Travels in the South – A History of South African Roads

This richly illustrated, thoroughly researched roads history book would be a valuable addition to any engineer’s bookshelf, and would also be of considerable value to civil engineering students. The authors, both well-known, experienced professional civil engineers, present a formidable body of technical South African roads knowledge and history in a very readable and attractive format. A glance at the chapter titles gives an idea of the scope of the book: Roads in antiquity, Roads timeline, Setting the scene for roads in South Africa, Chronicled roads in early South Africa, Growth in travel during the 19th century, From town streets to urban freeways, A countrywide national road network, Bypasses and ring roads, The concept and development of freeways, Secondary and tertiary access roads – the provincial road network, Financing of roads, Toll roads, Road pavements, Bridges, Road tunnels, Road research, Road designers and builders. Considering that South Africa’s extensive road network is the tenth longest of any country worldwide, its history is bound to be both colourful and technically compelling, which is precisely what the authors managed to capture in this book.