Highways to the End of the World
eBook - ePub

Highways to the End of the World

Roads, Roadmen and Power in South Asia

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Highways to the End of the World

Roads, Roadmen and Power in South Asia

About this book

This book argues that road-building was naturalised in the twentieth century to the point of common sense, integrating roadbuilding into a system of climate change denial hidden within a broad international development imperative. But if we can ‘read’ South Asian roads as forms of governance and knowledge, we can challenge the region’s established geopolitical narratives, and the idea of a never-ending future.

Highways to the End of the World explores the political economy of these ideas by focusing on the history of this phenomenon, and on the road-builders of South Asia themselves. How do these flamboyant and controversial ‘roadmen’ think about their work and the future of the planet? What do roads do, and why? And how did they become central to the region’s nationalist and developmental projects in the first place?

Simpson’s fascinating ethnographic account takes us from fume-filled toll booths in the heart of India, via overworked government offices in Pakistan, to pharaonic bridges in the Indian Ocean. Simpson follows the money, explores the politics of evidence, and argues against the utopian hyperbole of present-day ‘road talk’, finding both humanitarian crises and freewheeling international capital in the hedgerows. Roads have never been so interesting, or so controversial.


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Yes, you can access Highways to the End of the World by Edward Simpson in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Anthropology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. Photos
  7. Abbreviations
  8. Introduction: Signposts
  9. 1. On the Road: State Highway 31
  10. 2. Reading Roads: The Politics of Thought
  11. 3. Standard Geography: An Infrastructural Continent
  12. 4. Standard Narrative: Rural Roads in India
  13. 5. Gandhi, Nehru and the Royal Road through the Twentieth Century
  14. 6. Toyota to Tesla: Road Building is Privatised
  15. 7. Emperors of the Road: Mr Motorway and Mr Flyover
  16. 8. The Borderland’s New Roads: Nation-building at the Margins
  17. 9. Highways to the End of the World
  18. 10. On the Road Again: Following the Money from Toll Island
  19. Postscript: Other Road Dreams
  20. Acknowledgements
  21. Notes
  22. Bibliography
  23. Index
  24. Back Cover