"This short book provides a largely pictorial history of early American transportation. Focusing on Tidewater Virginia, starting with the founding of Jamestown, the photography draws largely on Tidewater locales and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's coach and livestock resources, including horses, oxen, and wheeled vehicles such as coaches, wagons, carts, and riding chairs. The photography also includes the Jamestown Settlement re-creation of the Discovery, one of the three ships that brought America's first permanent English colonists to Virginia in 1607, and a few other water transports. The text describes how early American transportation began with an almost an exclusive reliance on water, how horses became indispensable once they arrived, and how trails were eventually widened into roads to accommodate the carts, wagons, and carriages that became a critical part of social and economic growth in early America"--Provided by publisher.

Considers (74) H.R. 6732.

Figuring in myth, religion, law, the military, commerce, and transportation, rivers were at the heart of Rome's increasing exploitation of the environment of the Mediterranean world. In Rivers and the Power of Ancient Rome, Brian Campbell explores the role and influence of rivers and their surrounding landscape on the society and culture of the Roman Empire. Examining artistic representations of rivers, related architecture, and the work of ancient geographers and topographers, as well as writers who describe rivers, Campbell reveals how Romans defined the geographical areas they conquered and how geography and natural surroundings related to their society and activities. In addition, he illuminates the prominence and value of rivers in the control and expansion of the Roman Empire--through the legal regulation of riverine activities, the exploitation of rivers in military tactics, and the use of rivers as routes of communication and movement. Campbell shows how a technological understanding of--and even mastery over--the forces of the river helped Rome rise to its central place in the ancient world.