On Trails by Robert Moor

Just finished this and really don't know what to think about it except that it wasn't exactly what I anticipated. In fact, I'm not sure what it was about - certainly not the description of hiking trails and long walks that I expected. I think Moor was trying to explain the cultural role that trails have played in our society but he certainly took a roundabout way in doing it. He starts with a description of the faint fossilized trails left by Ediacarans (I'd never heard of them, either) which probably went extinct around 541 million years ago and may have been either plants or animals or a combination of both - no one apparently knows for sure. From there he goes on to describe trails made and left by ants, caterpillars, elephants and domestic sheep. Then it's on to describing the old trails left by Native Americans, especially the Cherokee, and how they contributed to the modern highway system in the United States. After that is a discussion of modern day deer hunters in the American south and how they use game trails to hunt. It's a short jump from there to describing early pioneer trails and on to the wagon roads which crossed the country in our early history to the modern highways and eventually to the interstate highway system. Somewhere along the way  he describes  the attempts to establish an International Appalachian Trail Association which would work to extend the Appalachian Trail north from Mount Katahdin to Europe and even to north Africa where he describes hiking its future route with two Moroccan guides, one a liberated young woman and the other, a traditional young man in every sense except for his obsession with his cell phone. Finally, and this is the part I enjoyed most, he describes walking with M.J. Eberhart, the "Nimblewill Nomad", author of Ten Million Steps (read it), who certainly has an interesting view on hiking.  And though Moor has extensive hiking experience - he hiked the Appalachian Trail himself - the book just never came together for me. Perhaps it's the kind of cerebral volume that guys like me have to read twice or more to fully understand.  Anyway, just thought some of you might be interested.