Customer Reviews

Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineering

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a collection of articles written for Petrowski's monthly column in American Scientist magazine. Many are brief biographies of 19th-century engineers; a (very) few look (very) briefly at particular pieces of historical engineering (an article on the Ferris wheel is probably the best); others are ruminations on such hazards of the engineering practice as the stress that keeps them up at night and their failure to be awarded Nobel prizes. These seem quite satisfactory articles for a magazine column but they are slender stuff for a book. And Petroski's tendency to return to the same subjects, pardonable in a monthly column, becomes repetitive when the columns are collected. All but die-hard Petroski fans can skip this one

This is a fine tome about engineering for those of us who scraped thru algebra! Should be required reading for *every* high school student. It gives a lot of basic information in understandable writing. Such as how did radio get to where it is today. Because of yacht racing... Now if that doesn't tease the brain, I don't know what else will...

I'm like those awful teachers who rarely give "10s" (although Petroski's The Pencil would get a 10!) Despite his protestation that these are slightly altered essays for the "American Engineer", as I recall, - he'd be hurt to realize that it's not common reading for most of us. For me it was all new territory - not covered in prior Petroski books and full of the interesting mix of social history and engineering history that he does so well. The order is arbitrary - except for the first chapter which is a bit autobiographical and perhaps should be read first - but I mostly skipped to topics I felt like reading and did them in my own order. My only criticisms are that a) the essays have some but could have used a bit more visuals - diagrams or photographs and b) many chapters - maybe not all but many - could easily have supported treatment at greater length. But I am a very tough grader. Also maybe at hardcover prices the publisher could be chided for not including more of the colums, this is a selection from thirty or so - and I doubt that Petroski was the parsimonious one! (but you can grab it while Amazon.com has it at 30% off) Its definitely nice to have this collection of columns from a journal I don't ever see, wrapped up in one volume.

Remaking the World should be sought out by any and all fans of engineering, laymen included. Anyone who has ever been mesmerized and enthralled by great feats of construction needs to take part in Petroski's stories behind these great feats. A thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable book.

... but I'm getting a copy for my Dad the engineer. I enjoyed this despite my very soft background in the hard sciences: an English degree. Petroski sometimes leads you down a road with an abrupt ending, but most times it's a pleasant journey and he leads the reader around a few curves, too.

Petroski has again assembled a great collection of stories that illustrate engineering themes. As much about engineers as engineering. Recommended to engineers who want to know more about thier craft.

Perhaps because they have become so good that they are taken for granted, engineers don't get the respect they used to and still deserve. It was different in the 19th century, when it was an open question whether the latest railroad, bridge or tunnel would work.

Many didn't. The occasional collapse of a highway bridge in the Twin Cities today is, by 19th century standards, small potatoes.

Professor Henry Petroski of Duke University made a reputation by writing about engineering catastrophes, but in these 19 essays, most originally published in American Scientist in the early 1990s, he concentrates on successes: the Channel Tunnel, the Ferris Wheel and several others.

The tone is mildly didactic. Petroski has spent his career not only unveiling the mysteries of engineering to the non-engineers but trying to get the P.E.s to appreciate the beauty, drama and social significance of their own profession.

Although many of the essays are about well-known projects, like the Hoover Dam, Petroski illuminates some of the lesser known aspects of them.

For me, the most interesting essays were not the ones about built projects, however, but about what might be called byways of engineering. Petroski reveals a scandal about the Nobel Prizes (that the founder, Alfred Nobel, an engineer, seems to have intended that engineers be eligible, a wish that was scotched by academics) and about the career of the man behind Robert's Rules of Order (an American, not, as I had assumed, an Englishman).

Henry Martyn Robert wrote his rules because of the difficulties he had endured during meetings about public projects he ran for the Army Corps of Engineers. Having sat through many similar meetings, I can relate, and while Robert's Rules have been useful in many venues, those kinds of meetings still tend to be unpleasant.

Well, it's easier to engineer a bridge than a crowd, and Petroski's last essay, on the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, takes us to a place where the two converge. I'd say his optimistic approach there has not been validated by experience, but it wasn't the engineering that failed.

The author, Henry Petroski, cooks down his vast knowledge here with an emphasis on the relationship of technology and the society which it serves. In these nearly twenty stories he chronicles accomplishments of engineers which are prelude to modern engineeing practice. These accounts of feats of engineering are very readable and gripping. The reader learns how engineering successes have influenced our lives in countless ways. In these essays, Dr Petroski, describes renouned historic structures, the engineering design process, and personalities involved that our typical histories have left out. I have read these adventures several times over and continue to return to them for their lessons. This collection gives a great opportunity for non technical readers to learn about numerous worthwhile achievements rarely covered elsewhere.

I found this book to be pretty interesting as to the history of some major engineering events, and people. Petroski's book tend to get a bit philosophical, but not too much. His writing is intriguiing and well researched. I bought this book for a graduate class and liked his writing enough to buy three more of his books.

I've been a fan of Henry Petroski for a long time, and this book is no exception. Remaking the World is a collection of essays, most of which originally appeared in American Scientist, the bimonthly magazine of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society.

Petroski's usual engaging style and thorough research is used to tell us the story of a variety of structures, people, and concepts. And even though I'm a professional engineer, I knew hardly any of these stories already.

There's a piece about the Channel Tunnel and the over 2 century (!) history of proposals, politics, and arguments, up to its eventual completion. There is one about the Nobel Prize, which was funded and conceived by an engineer, and yet today tends to reward "pure" scientists. There's one about Henry Martyn Robert, an engineer in the Core of Engineering, and his best-known work, which is not a piece of civil engineering, but Robert's Rules of Order. And there's one called "On the Backs of Envelopes" that explores this common way for engineers to begin working on a problem.

Petroski includes enough detail and technology to keep a technical person engaged, and yet explains clearly and keeps things simple so that someone less technical can enjoy him too. One can see how he can be both a professor of Civil Engineering and of History.

Recommended for anyone who is curious about engineers and engineering.