Customer Reviews

Bridges: Three Thousand Years of Defying Nature

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I've had this book for several months now, sitting on my coffee table, and have read it over and over. My only complaint is I wish it were 10 times longer! It is engagingly written, beautifully photographed. The writer strikes what for me was the right balance of history, aesthetics, and engineering. The only problem is the well-done writeups are just too short, leaving you wanting more. Still, very highly recommended.

This covers every possible aspect of bridge building that a layperson could think of. Except for one thing. It hardly mentions the laborers who are responsible for the work that made these bridges possible. Yes, a bridge is made from concrete, brick, steel, timber, cable, iron, and whatnot, but what about the blood, sweat, and tears? The book goes into the construction of piers, the methods used to erect various parts of the bridge, and so forth. But it stops short of mentioning how the laborers were organized, who they were, where they came from, and how many of them died building these works of art.

So, although the book filled me with knowledge, I finished it feeling a little bit empty, as if I had seen the surface of all the seas and oceans of the world, but never a whale or fish.