From a brilliant new literary voice comes a groundbreaking exploration of how trails help us understand the world—from tiny ant trails to hiking pathways that span continents, from interstate highways to the web.

In ’09 2009, while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Robert Moor began to wonder about the paths that lie beneath our ft: Just how do they form? Why do some improve as time passes while others fade? Why is us follow or hit off on our very own? Over the course of another seven years, about On Trails: An Exploration Moor journeyed the globe, discovering trails of most kinds, in the miniscule towards the substantial. He learned the methods of grasp trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee paths, and tracked the origins of our road networks and the web. In each section, Moor interweaves his adventures with results from science, background, philosophy, and nature writing—merging the nomadic joys of Peter Matthiessen with the eclectic intelligence of Lewis Hyde’s The Present.

Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic—the oft-overlooked trail—sheds fresh light on an abundance of age-old questions: So how exactly does purchase emerge out of chaos? How do animals first crawl forth through the seas and spread across continents? How provides humanity’s romantic relationship with character and technology formed world around us? And, ultimately, so how exactly does each of us pick a route through life?

Moor gets the essayist’s present to make new connections, the adventurer’s love for pathways untaken, as well as the philosopher’s knack for asking big queries. Using a breathtaking arc that spans from the dawn of animal life towards the digital era, On Trails is certainly a book that makes us discover our world, our history, our species, and our ways of life anew.

“The best outside book of the year” —Sierra Club

“Stunning…A wondrous non-fiction debut” —Departures

“Moor’s book is enchanting” —The Boston Globe

“A wanderer’s wish” —The Economist