James Dodson could write a synopsis of "Beowulf" and I'd read it . . . . . and probably give it five stars.

Simply put, Dodson is one of my favorites. His golf books and tales of travel with his father, son, and daughter are classics. I've recommended them (and given them as gifts) more times than I can count.

Frankly, I was thinking this would be more the story of his travel encounters and less a history primer, but it works the way James has crafted it.

If you are an American history buff and a people watcher, this is a book for you. It measures up to the Dodson standard of writing excellence. It tells human snippets of his life (girlfriend, dog, father, etc.) and weaves it through Revolutionary War and Civil War history. This book has the Dodson charm and the details of our nation's history that will make you smarter and happier. Guaranteed.

Phenomenal Esoteric Tale of American History You've Likely Never Heard Of Marred By Dearth Of Bibliography.

Looking back on my own ancestry off and on over the years, I've traced at least some lines to within a generation or two of when Europeans were in the Americas at all, and most of those lines come from somewhere in the British Isles - mostly England and Ireland (indeed, 5 of 6 historic Counties of Ireland), with a few Rhineland region relatives tossed in at different points for good measure. The ones that I've traced that far, they generally showed up in the Americas in Virginia or so and ultimately worked their way along the eastern side of the Appalachian foothills until they reached its southern end in the northwest corner of Georgia, not far from the border with North Carolina and Tennessee in the region known as the Great Smoky Mountains. There, I can trace nearly every line of my family tree to that same region for the past 180 years or so - including one multiple-great grandfather who died fighting for the Union in a battle in northeastern Alabama during the Civil War.

As it turns out, there was a reason my family took the geographic path it did once it got to the region now known as the United States - apparently quite a few immigrants made their way mostly down one particular road that wound its way along this very region from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania all the way to Augusta, Georgia - where even I spent a few years living directly across the river in Aiken, South Carolina.

But what do you care about all of this?

Well... long before the Oregon Trail or the Trail of Tears or other famous trails that took Americans west from the Appalachian Mountains ultimately to the Pacific Ocean, there was the Old Wagon Road. The road that fueled expansion inland *to* the Appalachians, and along which quite a bit of American history took place from the colonial years right up through the Civil War years in particular. This book reveals a lot of that history in stories not as well known by many, even when some of them involve names known by most Americans. Names like Benjamin Franklin and Robert E. Lee and Woodrow Wilson, just to name a few you'll hear about in this text and recognize.

The real magic here though is in the names you *don't* recognize. The tales you've *never* heard of before. This is where the "real" history of America lies - the history that is rapidly being forgotten and overwritten. The so-called "esoteric" history that supposedly only matters to fanatics and those whose ancestors directly played roles in or who were directly affected by, But one could argue - and Dodson makes a truly excellent case for throughout this book - that this is the very history that builds communities and tightens bonds within them. It is the history that binds people to place and whole to piece. It is the vagaries of one man choosing one path over another - and walking into the history books (for good or ill, at differing times) because of the path he chose that night. It is the history of families and communities coming together to celebrate the great times - and mourn the bad times. It is our history as Americans, and it is my personal history - even though Dodson's tales here don't touch on a single name I recognize from my family tree - because it is the history of how the nation came together via the individual and community actions of those who came so long before.

Narratively, this book is both memoir and history, following one man through time and space as he travels the road - as best as he can know it - from its origins in Philadelphia to its terminus in Augusta, learning the history of each place along the way and reflecting on his experience with it.

It is a stirring narrative, both in the communal and personal histories and in Dodson's ability to craft his words in such an evocative way. And yes, there are sections where no matter your own personal politics, Dodson is likely going to say something you don't overly like, whether it be espousing support for the so-called "1619 Project" in one chapter or supporting the right for Confederate monuments to exist in seemingly the very next chapter. But don't defenestrate the book, no matter how tempting iq may be in the moment. Read Dodson's words, and carefully consider them. This is no polemic. It is a pilgrimage, and one that we're brought along for the ride on and asked to experience for ourselves via Dodson's narrative here.

Overall a particularly strong book about histories largely forgotten and certainly far too often ignored. And yet it is this particular strength that also leads to its one flaw: For a book that shows so much history and even references quite a few texts along the way, for the bibliography to be only a page or two is damn near criminal. While the book did contain quite a few personal and direct interviews, there is also quite a bit of history discussed, and it would serve Dodson's readers to have a more complete bibliography so that they could read up on the same sources he used in his own research.

Very much recommended.

The Road That Made America A Modern Pilgrim's Journey on the Great Wagon Road by James Dodson was obtained directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. The Great Wagon Road, who has heard of it? No, it did not go West, it was the main roadway from Philadelphia south to Georgia. Many of us have crossed it or even been on it and yet had never heard of it. It goes through several states and many battles and historic instances have occurred along the road, which become less popular and slowly abandoned after the railroads went that direction. There is a lot of arguments about the roadway, such as smart people are not sure where exactly its route was, they know some parts but not all of it. If you are interested in this road and American history along the east coast, certainly give this book a read.

I don't know what you think about genealogy. I think it is kind of a fun hobby that should be pursued anonymously and privately, lest you bore those around you. Most fun hobbies are like this. I am a fan of one notable writer who has recently taken to collecting fountain pens, and I now know more than I want about fountain pens, and as I never wanted to ever learn anything about fountain pens. And I promise that I will not bore you overmuch with my opinions on my own personal genealogy or my favorite pen (which is the Zebra F-301 Retractable Ballpoint, the best pen ever made, and I will not argue about this, so don't even try me).

Case in point: I was talking to a co-worker who was starting to get into genealogy, and she mentioned how much she wanted to be able to show that she had an ancestor on the MAYFLOWER, and I said, "Oh, well, you go back far enough, most people are, even I am," and I had to explain about my multiple great-grandfather who was the ship's carpenter, and I very inadvertantly made her feel bad about herself, and I am sorry for that but it's hardly my fault.

So I get the impulse to write about one's own family history, even though it's deadly, scorchingly dull. I have not only MAYFLOWER ancestry but am related to several undistinguished Civil War generals, and I toyed for a while with the idea of writing about those fellows, but eventually gave it up as a bad job because it would involve frequent travel to Utica, New York (long story). And that is basically, sorta-kinda, what James Dodson started off to do here.

Dodson's forebearers were travelers on the "Great Wagon Road," which was originally an Indian pathway turned into a colonial thoroughfare, running along several tracks from Philadelphia west to York, and then southbound from there through the Shenandoah Valley, down into the Carolinas down to Augusta. (There is a great deal of argumentation in the book about the true route of said road, most of which can profitably be skipped.)

So the intention of the book, for better or worse, was for Dodson to travel the track of this road, in an ancient Buick, with his dog, TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY-style, retracing family history and all that. There are elements of that in the book, and I think, again, much of that can profitably be skipped. In the subtitle, Dodson describes himself as a "pilgrim," which is a word with a double meaning. Generally, a pilgrim is one who follows a well-worn path to a religious site. But the American usage of "Pilgrim" refers the pioneer colonists of Massachusetts Bay, who were going somewhere no one else had ever been (except the Native Americans, of course). Your basic pilgrim is going to Mecca or along the Camino de Santiago; the only historic relic my Pilgrim ancestors left is a thoroughly unremarkable rock in Plymouth, which has been disappointing visitors since the earliest days of the Republic. So Dodson is basically a pilgrim following the path of other pioneer-pilgrims, if that makes sense.

Fortunately, that's not what the book turned out to be--a deadly dull travelogue through the Middle Atlantic backwoods with a caravan of ghosts. What THE ROAD THAT MADE AMERICA turned out to be is a series of conversations with a whole lot of interesting people who are involved in efforts to preserve local history in their towns. Fortunately (for me, anyway) the tour starts in Philadelphia and Lancaster, which are a short hop from where I live in New Jersey and are fun places to visit. (Dodson details a visit to City Tavern in Philadelphia, which closed during COVID and has yet to re-open, and I am a bit depressed about that.) The book reads like one of those over-eager New York Times "48 Hours in Staunton, Virginia" articles, and I like those, but focusing on local history rather than avocado toast.

Anyway, not a very compelling narrative, I don't think, but lots of fun interactions with interesting people and a discussion of lots of history that I never once thought about (seriously, I've been to Lancaster maybe twenty times in the last twenty years and I've never once heard about the big massacre of Native Americans, go figure). Recommended (but I have bad news for you about Dodson's dog, sorry).

This is a rich and deeply researched story of the road from the North to the South that the colonists in the 1700’s traveled. The European colonists settled in the South. I love history and was fascinated. Thank you to NetGalley for a chance to read this ARC. The review is my own.