What does the layout of a city tell us about the American Dream? How have the train, car, and airplane changed our sense of distance? Karl Schlögel finds answers in surprising places: in timetables, address books, maps, and city plans. He brings history back to its locations, making it vivid, lively, and wonderfully readable. A book of deep seriousness and great lightness, a pamphlet and a trail of clues, dense and worldly. Jürgen Osterhammel, Die Zeit.