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Brian Hayes

Infrastructure: The Book of Everything for the Industrial Landscape Paperback – September 17, 2006

by Brian Hayes (Author)

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“Original, highly readable. . . . An extraordinary book.”―Anne Eisenberg, Scientific American

Print length

544 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

September 17, 2006
Dimensions

10 x 1.2 x 10 inches
ISBN-10

0393329593
ISBN-13

978-0393329599
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Brilliant . . . offering history and context . . . Infrastructure delivers on its promise to be the ‘book of everything’ for our human-made American landscape.”
- Jim Rossi, Grist

“Will help any technotourist to identify structures commonly encountered (if often overlooked) in outdoor urban habitats and industrial landscapes.”
- Science

“Ample text explains the unfamiliar workings of blast furnaces, oil refineries, granite quarries and wind farms. Hundreds of photos provide helpful illustrations. . . . Artistry can be found in the strangest places.”
- John J Miller, Wall Street Journal

“When seen through the discriminating lens of author and photographer Brian Hayes, man-made objects appear as exquisite and natural as organic ones. Radar domes echo the beauty of a fly’s eyes, a crop-irrigation rig takes on the twiggy grace of a praying mantis, and the miles of telephone towers and wires along US highways fuse into the western horizon.”
- Elizabeth Svobada, Wired

About the Author

Brian Hayes is a senior writer for American Scientist and a recipient of a National Magazine Award. He lives in the Boston area.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (September 17, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 544 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393329593
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393329599
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.12 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 10 x 1.2 x 10 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #463,021 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #275 in Landscape Architecture (Books)
- #635 in Social Aspects of Technology
- #1,087 in Architectural Buildings

Customer Reviews:
27 ratings

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Brian Hayes

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5 star		82%
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Top reviews from the United States

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C. J. ARNOLD

Once you start looking, you see this stuff everywhere.

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2011

Verified Purchase

After years of playing successive versions of SimCity, and generally being fascinated with urban planning, I picked up this book to learn more about the "built environment". First, the book is dense, heavy, printed on good glossy paper. It's like a paperback textbook. Hayes moves through different sectors of the industrial landscape, from mining to smelting to electrical generation and distribution. He covers the transportation networks that we all use, but probably take for granted. The pictures are splendid, and diverse. I learned several new things on each page, and it has changed the way I look at the world around me.

Imagine the dismay of my poor wife when, as we drove merrily along a rural highway in Tennessee, I began to explain why one almost always sees electric lines in sets of three (three phase power), and often with a smaller wire at the top of the poles (designed to "catch" the lightning before it gets to the transmission lines. I started telling her about transformer boxes, and why fiber optic cables are often left in a sort of teardrop-shaped loop between two poles. That's when she told me that she was done listening to me.

It's got lots and lots of facts, and they're facts about things that surround you, dear reader.

8 people found this helpful

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Mr. Nathaniel Singer

Phenomenal book, interesting, detailed, a surprisingly great pleasure to read

Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2007

Verified Purchase

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.

5 people found this helpful

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T.A.L. Dozer

Reference for Saboteurs & Demolition Men

Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2012

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Reference for Saboteurs & Demolition Men

I am sure when Brain Hayes wrote his book "Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape" he did not intend for it to be used as a resource for military demolition experts. This book is absolutely brilliant and has provided a valuable training resource in understanding urban physical infrastructure for targeting. Sabotage training for military and saboteurs consisted of teaching would-be demolition men the key components to the working of machinery and/or structures on which to focus their destruction. Saboteurs learn the extensive art and science of explosives and demolitions to cause permanent and semi-permanent destruction by specifically targeting certain "sweet spots" with explosives, properly placed, could bring down a bridge, cave in a mine shaft, or collapse the roof of a railroad tunnel. Some of the examples of possible targets of sabotage covered in this book include:

* fuel depots and manufacturing facilities
* Supply depots/ warehouses
* Repair facilities
* Oil pipelines
Aquatic Targets of Sabotage:
* Water routes (canals, river, etc.)
* Harbors, piers, and docks (both from water and land routes)
Land Routes, Vehicles, and Weapons as Targets of Sabotage:
* Railways (track, switching units, etc.) and rail bridges and tunnels
* Trains (locomotive, freight, and passenger cars)
* Roads and road bridges and tunnels
* Air traffic control towers
* Runways/airfields
Industrial and Economic Targets of Sabotage:
* Industries
* Machinery (as opposed to an entire factory)
* Economic crops (ex: rubber tree plantations)
* Coal mines
Utilities as Targets of Sabotage:
* Communications (lines above and below ground, radar installations, radio facilities)
* Electrical facilities
* Water facilities

Overall, I commend the author on outstanding book, and I highly recommend this book to anyone operating in the military field of explosives and/or special operations.

3 people found this helpful

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Eric Jain

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2011

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One of the most amazing and eye-opening books I have read in a long time.

Perfect for people who are curious about their surroundings and like to know how things work: Ever wondered what the purpose of each of the cables and boxes on the utility poles outside your house is? What the logic behind the numbering of the highway system in the United States is? How all the antennas and towers around airports help manage air traffic? Even people who consider the "industrial landscape" to be nothing more than an eye-sore might gain some appreciation after learning what function things serve and how they came to be.

Each chapter in this book could of course be a book of its own, but there is enough width and depth in this book to make it both fun to read from beginning to end as well as worth keeping as a reference. It's also a nice coffee table book, given the amount of photos it contains.

There is some bias towards infrastructure that is found in the United States, but most of the knowledge in this book isn't limited to the United States (in fact a significant number of the photos in this book were taken in other countries), and there are even some discussions of differences (e.g. the typical layout of farms in Europe and in the United States).

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Nicolas Lachance-Brais

I have been amazed at the depth and scope of this book

Reviewed in Canada on March 1, 2018

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I have been amazed at the depth and scope of this book! A must read for understanding the function of our modern lifestyle

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Infrastructure: The Book of Everything for the Industrial Landscape Paperback – September 17, 2006

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About the author

Brian Hayes

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