You do not have to have a taste for hops to appreciate the front cover’s color photograph of an International Transtar COE hauling a trailer full of Hamm’s Beer. Based in Minnesota, Ron Adams shares that 1960s connection with St. Paul, Minnesota’s Hamm’s Beer. A coincidence? You decide. Published initially in 2006, the book follows the established Iconografix format. The softcover landscape design allows Adams to offer an engaging collection of 121 black-and-white photographs of an interesting decade in the International truck story. Part of the “At Work Series,” the photographs provide a variety of work-related bodies and activities including low boys and semi-trailer-based tractor-trailer units for tankers and grain haulers, for example. Many photographs feature attached bodies for service, such as dump trucks, oil field use, refuse hauling, automobile shipping, and livestock hauling, as well as specialized custom trailers and bodies to handle unique loads. Both single and double trailer combinations are also included, as are examples of the off-road Payhauler at work in mining activities. None of the photo captions is lengthy, sometimes lacking details such as the year the photograph was taken. The brief, two-page Introduction provides background details about 1960s International trucks starting in the 1950s.

Book Review by Robert Gabrick