1926. Feuchtwanger was a German novelist who was a pacifist and socialist. His works were often concerned with Jewish history and were also noted for their lucid analyses of contemporary problems. The book begins: A network of roads, like veins, was strung over the land, interlacing, branching, dwindling to nothing. They were neglected, full of stones and holes, torn up, overgrown, bottomless swamp in wet weather, and besides everywhere impeded by tollgates. In the south, among the mountains, they narrowed into bridle-paths and disappeared. All the blood of the land flowed through these veins. The bumpy roads, gaping with dusty cracks in the sun, heavy with mud in the rain, were the moving life of the land, its breath and pulse. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. - from Amzon