Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Governments in the Early United States. By John Lauritz Larson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Pp. xv, 324. $55.00, cloth; $19.95, paper.

Extract

The central policy questions of the early decades of the American republic concerned internal improvements, that is, programs and projects aimed to aid the security and prosperity of the newly united States. Over time, “internal improvements” became synonymous with public works for improved transportation, reflecting the role of geography as perhaps the greatest obstacle to economic growth and political integration. In this book, John Lauritz Larson explores the causes and consequences of the mostly failed early federal and state government attempts to implement designs for transportation infrastructure.