Giant Earthmovers: An Illustrated History (Crestline) [Paperback]

Keith Haddock (Author)

Book Description

Series: Crestline | Publication Date: August 16, 1998

A comprehensive review of earthmoving and construction equipment from the birth of primitive industrial tools to today's awe-inspiring machines! The biggest haulers, dozers, scrapers and unusual specialty equipment in the field are presented here in over 500 black-and-white photographs. The author's expertly written text details machine categories and discusses the history, evolution, design and manufacture of these industry giants. Packed full of top-quality archival photographs, most taken from manufacturer archives.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: MBI (August 16, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076030369X
• ISBN-13: 978-0760303696
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,290,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Useful Introduction to Heavy Equipment, January 2, 2001

By 

Edward Garea "Edward Garea" (Branchville, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Giant Earthmovers: An Illustrated History (Crestline) (Paperback)

Keith Haddock has written a serious and lavishly illustrated introduction to the world of heavy equipment, a world not used to being treated in such an adult fashion.

Haddock traces the history and development of each type of machine listed in his book, along with their manufacturuers,and the history of each brand name in the field. Accompanying the text are a series of clear, relevant photographs that illustrate different brands and periods in the development of each machine. Whereas many books drop an adult approach for the "Oh Boy, What a Big Machine That Is!" view of things, Haddock sticks with his conviction that he is writing for an intelligent audience interested in the history and development of heavy earthmoving machines. It is an approach I greatly appreciate.

One qualm with this book and others like it: There is too much emphasis placed on the largest of the machines; probably in the belief that this is the only way to sell such an intelligent book. However, if this is the only approach, why are there no color photos? While I can appreciate the size of a Caterpillar Model 24H grader, let's face the fact that the graders we normally deal with, and the graders that helped build America's road system, are the Cat Models 10 and 12 grader. Also what about the automatic paving machine and ther roller. We never hear of their stories; yet without them, roads would be much the worse for wear.

But until such a book comes out, Haddock's tome is well worth the time and money and is guaranteed intelligent reading with much to offer in the way of learning.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you like earthmoving machines, buy this book., August 22, 2000

By 

Leandro Bittencourt (Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giant Earthmovers: An Illustrated History (Crestline) (Paperback)

This book teaches a lot of earthmoving machines, mainly the manufactories history, and you will see the most exotic kind of machines that ever worked. Although all its pictures are black and white, it worst. Buy it.

4.0 out of 5 stars The photos are all black & white, January 14, 2007

By 

Dalton C. Rocha (Fortaleza, CE, Brazil.) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Giant Earthmovers: An Illustrated History (Crestline) (Paperback)

I read this book here in Brazil.This book is easy to read, well organized and have correct informations, about this subject.There's many chapters and every chapter, is about one kind of earthmover.Every chapter has a little historic beggining and then, we can read about the biggests makers of each earthmover machine.Germany to example, produces the biggests hidraulic escavators.
The main failure of this book are the photos.All of them are B&W.There isn't a single color photo, in this book.If a book is a historic book such as about World War I, is good to have only B&W photos, because only this kind of photo was then available.This book, even about nowadays machines , has only B&W photos.Then all photos are basically weak.The text is excellent, but the photos are weak.Because of the photos, I'll give 4 stars, not 5 stars for this book.