Customer Reviews

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Great book but the paperback edition is unwieldy. The book is very wide and printed on high quality, glossy paper which is very heavy. It's almost impossible to read the paperback edition when holding it in your hands because it won't lie flat.

I'm returning it and ordering the hard cover edition.

In times past everyone pretty well knew what everything you saw was, how it was built, and what it was for. Now, you can't keep up. This book might be called a field guide to modern technology. It answers the questions you or your scientifically oriented high-schooler might ask, like:

Why are cell phone antennas triangular
Why are power plant cooling towers shaped the way they are
How do train signals work (There's a whole chapter on railroads.)
and bridges
and airports
and ships
and mines
and dams
and sewers
and barns.

It seems that nothing has escaped the camera and inquisitive mind of the author. It's a fascinating book, suitable for coffee table or especially to keep in the car when driving with the inquisitive kid. It's a book that I pick up when interested in something, and then find that I haven't put it down until I've covered ten or twenty pages. I guess I'm still the inquisitive kid.

Brian Hayes has produced an excellent book which descibes the workings of the industrial infrustructure as we see it on the surface of the industrialised world, in particular the US and Italy.

Hayes clearly explains what we often see as mysterious, arcane and inexplicable structures in the industrial landscape in clear terms, without becoming tediously technical and using difficult technical terminology, regarding those who may not be overly familar with the mechanics and procedures of mining, energy production and other similar industries.

The text is profusely illustrated with clear colour photographs with captions on every page. Very few diagrams are included, unless absolutely necessary. The captions associated with the photographs elucidate the workings of the machinery or structures depicted. Details such as pylon insulators are also explained. Importantly, a sense of scale is always provided by pointing out an object in the picture which is recognisable.

This is an important book, long needed. It is non-judgemental, and written with a playfulness which makes it all the more engaging. The analogies and explanations given are clear, and the language is accessible most readers including young people from the age of ten, without being condescending.

Infrastructure is a well designed book, produced on art paper (glossy and china coated), and is actually quite weighty. The layout is clear and functional, good typography and eminently legible. The design matches its contents.

My husband is the kind of guy who likes to drive out into the countryside following power lines to see where they go. The book seemed like a natural fit, so I ordered it for him for Valentine's day.

Mistake! He spent much of the evening of the 14th poring over the pages, "plugged into the Source," so to speak. (To his credit, he eventually tore himself away from it--with great regret.) So: excellent gift for the technical guys and gals in your life, but don't expect them pay attention to you any time in the next two weeks.

I'd guess Infrastructure would also be a good non-TV option for frazzled moms with bright, incessantly questioning children. Plunk them on the couch, plop the book on their lap, don't forget to provide food and water periodically.

Surprisingly, I found myself drawn to the book as well. I fall into an unresponsive trance when anyone so much as mentions an internal combustion engine, but Brian Hayes is quite seductive. He caught my eye with the gorgeous pictures and layout; I stayed to read the captions, then lingered to skim the text, and suddenly I was fascinated by mega-mining machines and exit ramp layouts.

Even the pages smell good.

As an engineer myself, I have been repeatedly astonished at how much this book has to offer. So many things I have wondered about and speculated on are addressed here. It's a long read (at least for me) but worth every minute. I wish I'd had this book 25 years ago as I probably could have skipped the first year or two of engineering school. It does get a bit geeky in places, with a few more detailed descriptions, but overall, it's written for someone with a curious mind. I feel like I can travel around our landscape with a new layer of understanding about how and why things are the way they are. An invaluable resource.

Highly recommended.

This book is incredible. It explains so many of the things you look at but don't really understand when you drive around the world, presented in clear, immensely enjoyable text written for the literate layman.

Everything is written from the viewpoint of the observer, so that explanations of the purpose of an object are accompanied by descriptions of how to recognize it and spot it "in the field". The chapter on the power grid, for example, covers so much of "Things on telephone poles", that I now have trouble driving a straight line down a road that runs near a power line because my eyes are drawn upward trying to spot pieces of equipment. He even includes a box explaining the telephone pole itself.

The author has basic, easy to read explanations of any science or technical information that may be helpful in understanding the function of objects. The explanations of items and places are clear and easy to read, never bogging down for even the most technical of items. His photography provides clear examples of what is mentioned in the text. International examples abound, and make interesting comparisons to U.S. standards. Also, a fascinating introduction and many points in the text raise and discuss interesting questions about the impact of the often large-scale infrastructure on our environment and society.

This book is like a huge jar of peanuts: so much that you would never be able to complete it in a few sittings, but once you start it is hard to put it down. And whenever I pass by it on the table, I always want to read a section or two. It is a fantastic reference, inspiring moments of "aha, that's what that is" at every turn.

The author's bio mentions that he has been working on it for 15 years, and this dedication shows. It is hard to imagine how one man can accomplish such an encyclopedic work as this, even in 15 years. Clearly, a labor of love that has produced a terrific volume that I'm sure I will enjoy for years.

Going into this book, I would have never expected that it would become one of my five or so favorite books of all time. Taking what could be the most mundane, everyday objects and sites and providing an incredibly rich explanation of their purpose, their reason for being, sounds like an incredibly difficult task. Making it interesting enough to actually turn into a page-turner sounds impossible.

It is clear that the author has poured his heart into this book, and one emerges post-reading it as excited and almost as passionate as the author himself. The prose is remarkably well written, chapters commencing of the form "The social life of dairy cows is endlessly fascinating.." -- and it remarkably is, as he goes on to explain!

There are very few books that are such a labor of love. If I were trying to get a child interested in the world around them, I would buy this book for them immediately. It provides the richness to really begin to appreciate the world in its full complexity, with a framework that really makes a lot of sense. As an investor & member of the business community, I instead respect this book based on the fascinating topological overview that the book gives of the lesser-seen aspects of the industrial economy and its key value chains.

Fascinating. Fantastic. One of my favorites ever - a surely unrecognized marvel of a book. I wish the author well.

This engrossing book leads the reader on a tour of industrial features that one would encounter on both a cross-country or cross-town trip. After reading this book, you will find yourself---as I did---pointing out industrial installations and explaining their use to friends and family.

The glossy, full-color pictures are the most striking feature of this large book. They superbly complement the already excellent, clear, and well-organized text. I was also particularly impressed by the further reading listed at the back of the book. It is organized by chapter and ranked from "Kids" to "Geeks". It filled my stack of reading for several weeks after I finished Infrastructure.

My only criticism of the book echoes the author's apology in the preface: there are many technologies and industries necessarily absent from the book. I can only hope that the author will produce further books of similar quality in the future.

A proviso that must be made is that this is a very-USA-centric book. No disrespect intended as it is a beautifully photographed and relatively detailed (plus references for a lot more information) tome. Just something to keep in mind as the world is not (yet?) flat in infrastructure.

I like to think of myself as pretty knowledgeable, but I learned quite a bit in each chapter. I can imagine a similar book for Infrastructure 1925 (or so). Would be fun to see what has been lost (trains/streetcars/twice-daily-mail delivery) and gained (more obvious).

If you have any interest in seeing how industry works (mining, the electrical grid, etc), you can get lost for hours in this book. The information is deep and very accessible. I've given it as a gift and it went over VERY well.