Originally published in 1912, this book with extensive source footnotes and bibliography follows the evolution and development of roads, rivers, canals, tramways, buses and cycles. The role that the development of transport played in the growth and expansion of trade and industry and on the general economic and social conditions of the country is one of the main issues that is discussed. Other themes which are examined are the electrification of the railways, railways and the state, railway rates and charges and early trading conditions.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the growth of interest in the urban past was one of the most prominent developments in historical studies in the United Kingdom. In part, this was due to the work of the late H. J. Dyos. This book brings together some of Dyos's most important and influential essays, written over nearly thirty years.