Route 20 was named a federal highway in 1926, and for the first half of the 20th century, it was Massachusetts's most important east -west road. Extending from Boston's dynamic Kenmore Square to bucolic Hancock Shaker Village on the New York border, the road's history, beauty, and contribution to Massachusetts's vitality were unmatched. Fortunately, almost all of the original road still exists and can be traveled by the modern motorist seeking a nostalgic adventure. In Along Massachusetts's Historic Route 20, more than 200 vintage postcards tell the road's story. Included are scenes along the Boston Post Road and Jacob's Ladder Trail, two of the highway's most historic segments, and also images of main streets, village greens, historic sites, scenic rural vistas, and, of course, the roadside tourist courts, diners, and gas stations that made automobile travel possible.

Gold Medalist, 2009 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Travel-Essay category "I know US 20, I live on it, grew up near it, commute to work on it, and have run on it most mornings for twenty-five years. It has become the Main Street of my life. I am fond of it, and want to tell its very American story." — from the Introduction Whether he's on foot, in a car, or even in a canoe, Mac Nelson will delight readers with his rambling, westward depiction of America as seen from the shoulders of its longest road, US Route 20. As the "0" in its route number indicates, US 20 is a coast-to-coast road, crossing twelve states as it meanders 3,300 miles from Boston, Massachusetts, to Newport, Oregon. Nelson, an experienced "shunpiker," travels west along the Great Road, ruminating on history, literature, scenery, geology, politics, wilderness, the Great Plains, and national parks—whatever the most interesting aspects of a particular region seem to be. Beginning with the great writers and founders of religion in the East who lived and wrote on or near US 20, including Anne Bradstreet, Phyllis Wheatley, and Sylvia Plath, then crossing the plains to the forests, mountains, and deserts of the West, Nelson's journey on this beloved road is personal and idiosyncratic, serious and comic. More than a mile-by-mile guidebook, Twenty West offers a glimpse of a boyish and very American fascination with the road that will entice the traveler in all of us to take the long way home.

In his old beat 1983 Honda Civic Wagon, Michael Czarnecki, takes a 20 day solo journey across America following Route 20 from Boston to the Pacific Northwest. Michael chronicles his journey in haibun, a Japanese literary form combining prose and haiku.

Route 20 was named a federal highway in 1926, and for the first half of the 20th century it was the most important east-west road across northern Ohio. Extending from the Pennsylvania border east of Conneaut to its western terminus with Indiana, it made Ohio the connecting link between Northeastern and Midwestern states. Fortunately, Route 20 has remained virtually intact and can be traveled much as people did in years past. Postcard History Series: Along Ohios Historic Route 20 celebrates such a trip, illustrated by more than 200 vintage postcards depicting views along the way. Town and city scenes, rural vistas, and historic sites that drew early motorists to the highway are featured. Not to be forgotten are the tourist courts, hotels, diners, and gas stations that made automobile journeys possible.

Few roads can match Route 20's beauty, history, or contribution to New York's vitality. In 1926, Route 20 became a federal highway and evolved into New York's foremost east-west road. But unlike most early highways, it has survived almost completely intact. The story of Route 20 is told through more than 200 vintage postcards showing scenes from the Shaker communities in Columbia County to the Lake Erie Shore. The postcards show the personality of the road: main streets, the Finger Lakes, and scenic vistas. Not to be forgotten are the tourist courts, hotels, diners, and gas stations that made travel possible. In The Revolutionary War in Bergen County, Carol Karels and her team of scholars weave a masterful account of the war in northeastern New Jersey. Here in Bergen County General Washington took the young Marquis de Lafayette under his wing; here in Bergen County the future antagonists Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were baptized by fire; here in Bergen County families--in a prelude to the Civil War--split bitterly along Loyalist and Patriotic lines. From Washington's miraculous November 1776 retreat to the Delaware to the beginning of the Continental Army's epic August 1781 march to destiny at Yorktown, The Revolutionary War in Bergen County, comprehensively encompasses one of the Revolutionary War's most dramatic and pivotal fronts.

Pulitzer Prize Winner: “A meticulous and remarkably detailed account of the early government and social organization of the town of Sudbury, Massachusetts.” —Time In addition to drawing on local records from Sudbury, Massachusetts, the author of this classic work, which won the Pulitzer Prize in History, traced the town’s early families back to England to create an outstanding portrait of a colonial settlement in the seventeenth century. He looks at the various individuals who formed this new society; how institutions and government took shape; what changed—or didn’t—in the movement from the Old World to the New; and how those from different local cultures adjusted, adapted, competed, and cooperated to plant the seeds of what would become, in the century to follow, a commonwealth of the United States of America. “An important and interesting book . . . to the student of institutions, even to the sociologist, as well as to the historian.” —The New England Quarterly

HIghway 20 was designated a federal highway in 1926 and until the arrival of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s, it was a primary route across northern Wyoming. From the Great Plains in the east to the mountains in the west, Highway 20 passed through cities and towns that retain their frontier visages and such wonders as Hell's Half Acre, the Wind River Canyon, Natural Hot Springs, Buffalo Bill Scenic Byway, and spectacular Yellowstone National Park. Fortunately, Historic Highway 20 celebrates this trip, illustrated by more than 200 vintage postcards showing the personality of the road. Not to be forgotten are the tourist courts, hotels, diners, and gas stations that made automobile travel possible.

During the winter of 1776, in one of the most amazing logistical feats of the Revolutionary War, Henry Knox and his teamsters transported cannons from Fort Ticonderoga through the sparsely populated Berkshires to Boston to help drive British forces from the city. This history documents Knox's precise route--dubbed the Henry Knox Trail--and chronicles the evolution of an ordinary Indian path into a fur corridor, a settlement trail, and eventually a war road. By recounting the growth of this important but under appreciated thoroughfare, this study offers critical insight into a vital Revolutionary supply route.