Customer Reviews

Giant Earthmovers: An Illustrated History (Crestline)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

"Giant Earthmovers" is a fairly good book. At 224 pages there is enough room for very good text and info on the various machines. And, the idea for the book is excellent. But, the photos are all, washed-out, black and white photos. There is decent coverage of the bigger machines from the 1940s, onward. I think there could have been better coverage of earlier machines and of the latest machines.

I was quite disapointed in the photography. I had hoped that many of the photos would be in color. Also, the quality of the photos is no better than photos in an old black and white newspaper. While the quality of the paper in the book is decent, perhaps a higher quality paper would have given higher quality photos.

For the price, I expected at least one more notch of quality in the photos. Also, I was suprised at how few of the photos had a person in them to give proportion to some of these monster machines. I grew up in Pennsylvania Hard Coal Country and the strip-mining machines could boggle one's mind. It would have taken only a half dozen photos like the one on the book's cover to impart that sense of wonder.

I am sorry, but this book could have been much better. Nevertheless, it seems to be the best of its kind currently available.