The Roads to Rome: A History of Imperial Expansion

"Another book that captured my attention was The Roads to Rome by Catherine Fletcher, which looks at the ancient road network across the Roman Empire but also across the centuries since they were built. It’s a travelogue, kind of: you join her going around Rome—including to the Via Appia Antica where, even today, the giant stones continue to give an idea of what parts of this 100,000-kilometer network of roads once looked like—and then out across 14 countries. It’s an account of how the roads captured people’s imagination, from writers like Goethe to dictators like Hitler ."