Since before the time of Julius Caesar, the ability -- or inability -- to get from point A to point B has won wars, generated economic booms and busts, and enriched or diminished the lives of billions of people. The competition to get there first on road, rail, sea or air has been fierce enough to create massive fortunes and to leave behind sagas of opportunity, greed, high ideals, raw ambition, and heartbreak. This web site is dedicated to telling those tales, whether past, present or future; from the Inca highway of Peru to the Acela high-speed train that is now streaking down Americas Northeast Corridor to the latest development in this mornings news. My books on the subject -- Race to the Sky: The Wright Brothers vs. the United States Government, Colonel Albert Pope and His American Dream Machine and Getting There: The Epic Struggle Between Road And Rail In the American Century -- are described in detail, along with capsule reviews, tables of contents, summaries, and ordering information. One of my great joys is sharing my enthusiasm about getting around with audiences from coast to coast, and Ill tell you how to contact me to discuss my bringing a multimedia presentation to your area. Finally, youll be able to learn up-to-the-minute news about current transportation developments that may affect your life, through our continually-updated transportation newswire, the News Express. About the Author, Stephen B. Goddard is a national authority on the history and social impact of American transportation. The author of the critically-acclaimed book, Getting There: The Epic Struggle Between Road and Rail in the American Century (Basic Books, 1994), he has spoken to audiences from coast to coast, and his pieces have appeared in several dozen newspapers, including the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Newsday, Atlanta Constitution, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle, among others. Goddards article Lessons For a New Century won the $10,000 Second Prize in the 2001 international writing competition sponsored by The Economist and Royal Dutch/Shell Corporation. His article, The Road to Now appeared in the September, 1997 issue of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. Getting There, featured on National Public Radios Fresh Air, won overwhelmingly positive reviews and was published in paperback by the University of Chicago Press. Goddard is in the general practice of law in Hartford, Connecticut, where he is a co-founder of All Aboard!, a 1,000-member advocacy group formed to press for a regional public transit system. He and his wife, Patricia, have raised three children and have three grandchildren. Goddard is past board president of the Hartford Public Library, a board member of the Connecticut Historical Society, and an advisory board member of the Connecticut Center for the Book. He teaches history at Trinity College and the University of Hartford. His interest in transportation began in the 1960s as an undergraduate at Bates College, where Goddard wrote his senior thesis on the interaction between the birth of the Interstate Defense Highway System and the death of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.
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