I have a confession to make. When I was first offered this book on the phone, paying insufficient attention, I heard ‘Cultural history … on Rhodes,’ and said ‘yes’ with alacrity. The Colossus … the magnificent medieval city …. the Knights Hospitaller and the tragic siege of 1522 … Yes please. But by the end of the conversation, I realised with a sinking heart what I had let myself in for. Not Rhodes, but roads. The M6, the A303, the Newbury bypass. On Roads. 

The arrival of the book did nothing to raise my spirits. The author is a reader at a lesser university, he has previously written a study of queuing, and the whole thing sounds like a desperate effort by some dim sociology lecturer to find something to add to