The Way to Go

Kate Ascher, author of the great The Works: Anatomy of a City, has a new book out about transportation. The Way to Go explores how global transportation works, from how car engines work to the ocean routes travelled by huge cargo ships. Slate has an excerpt.

Focusing on the machines that underpin our lives, Ascher’s The Way to Go also introduces the systems that keep those machines in business — the emergency communication networks that connect ships at sea, the automated tolling mechanisms that maintain the flow of highway traffic, the air control network that keeps planes from colliding in the sky. Equally fascinating are the technologies behind these complex systems: baggage tag readers that make sure people’s bags go where they need to; automated streetlights that adjust their timing based on traffic flow; GPS devices that pinpoint where we are on earth at any second. Together these technologies move more people farther, faster, and more cheaply than at any other time in history.

Ordered. The kids are going to love this one…it’s like a more grown-up version of Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go.

• books
• Cars and Trucks and Things That Go
• cities
• Kate Ascher
• Richard Scarry
• The Way to Go