Amazon.com Review
David Macaulay's hit PBS series by the same name cannot take you as far as this book does into the wonders of the constructed world: dams, domes, skyscrapers, tunnels, and bridges. It's also a trip through time, transporting you, for instance, from Rome's Ponte Fabricio (built in 62 B.C.) to the 1930s Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to France's Ponte de Normandie across the Seine, which was the longest bridge on earth when completed in 1994. Some of the wires that so ingeniously hold up the Golden Gate are depicted in their intricate engineering context--and at their actual size. As you pore over Macaulay's crystal-clear text and profuse illustrations, the mental fog lifts and you get a sense of what a marvelous act of imagination the bridge is.
In books about building, the whole art lies in the details. Macaulay gives you a glimpse into the minds of the designers, too: in making a tunnel under the Thames River in London, Marc Brunel was inspired by shipworms, "the scourge of the Royal Navy," mollusks who used shieldlike shells to bore holes through timber "and then had the audacity to create a rigid lining in the wood with material they excreted." Though the poor workers who created Brunel's tunnel shields had to brave fiery explosions of methane gas and vile fumes from centuries of sewage--and as Macaulay rather rudely puts it, "Brunel's shield now seems a bit like a platoon of creaking Star Wars robots leaning against each other for support as they inch their way nervously through the muck"--the construction did the trick. That tunnel begun in 1825 is still part of the London Underground subway system.
Macaulay can construct a sound sentence: a child can grasp his celebration of the art of engineering, and a grownup can read him with childlike glee. --Tim Appelo
From Publishers Weekly
If ever a book were destined to inspire a future generation of engineers and designers, it would be this volume, a companion to the PBS series of the same name. From Istanbul to New York City, San Francisco to the Firth of Forth, Macaulay circles the globe and spans the centuries to provide a fascinating peek at the inner workings of bridges, tunnels, skyscrapers, domes and dams, each arranged by section with a brief overview. As he delves into the history as well as the mechanics of each projectDan all-star lineup of engineering icons that includes the Pantheon, Hoover Dam, the Channel Tunnel and the Chrysler Building Macaulay is in his element, nimbly deploying his gift for making the arcane accessible. For instance, he describes Brunel's shield, a tedious but successful tunnel-boring aid used under the Thames in the early 19th century, as "a bit like a platoon of creaking Star Wars robots leaning against each other for support as they inch their way nervously through the muck." Macaulay constructs the volume as thoughtfully as an engineer, explaining in his opening note on bridges, "They are in a sense three-dimensional diagrams of the work they do, and this makes them ideal subjects with which to begin." Each section connects to the next with intelligence and humor (e.g., his opening to the tunnels section: "While bridges, skyscrapers, domes and even a few dams enjoy varying amounts of popularity, I think it's fairly safe to say that only an engineer could love a tunnel"). His trademark cutaway views and diagrams also illuminate and instruct as they illustrate. Readers will not only enjoy an intimate look at specific structures, but ultimately come away with a broad overview of how modern engineering evolved. Macaulay fosters in readers a keen appreciation for the role of logic, imagination and perseverance in vaulting over impediments and bringing a project to completion. All ages. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
