Reading the Rails

From the author of Letters of Transit and, more recently, Whistle-Stopping America comes this account of rail journeys across Russia, China, Eastern Europe, Malaysia, pre-war Syria, and the United States.

Acclaimed travel writer and essayist Matthew Mills Stevenson writes with wit and historical appreciation about what he sees, hears, and reads on his trans-continental train journeys along some of the most celebrated routes in the world--but also on branch lines in Kosovo, Greece, Poland, and Transnistria ("Stalin's showroom").

In China, Stevenson goes in search of Port Arthur and the 1904 Russo-Japanese War ("On those tracks are the origins of many wars"). From Prague to Berlin, he writes about the origins of World War II ("The Sudetenland reminded me of the Berkshires in western Massachusetts"). On Amtrak across the United States, he despairs over the collapse of American passenger rail service ("Why hasn't the route map changed in forty years?").

Neither a travel book nor a conventional railroad history, Reading the Rails captures not just the romance of trains but also the politics, history, books, and tragedies that went along these great lines.

The writing blends Stevenson's sense of irony and keen eye with his essayist's touch for events and historical passages.