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Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineering, by Henry Petroski
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This collection of informative and pleasurable essays by Henry Petroski elucidates the role of engineers in shaping our environment in countless ways, big and small.
In Remaking the World Petroski gravitates this time, perhaps, toward the big: the English Channel tunnel, the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, the QE2, and the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia, now the tallest buildings in the world. He profiles Charles Steinmetz, the genius of the General Electric Company; Henry Martyn Robert, a military engineer who created Robert's Rules of Order; and James Nasmyth, the Scotsman whose machine tools helped shape nineteenth-century ocean and rail transportation. Petroski sifts through the fossils of technology for cautionary tales and remarkable twists of fortune, and reminds us that failure is often a necessary step on the path to new discoveries. He explains soil mechanics by way of a game of "rock, scissors, paper," and clarifies fundamental principles of engineering through the spokes of a Ferris wheel.
Most of all, Henry Petroski continues to celebrate the men and women whose scrawls on the backs of envelopes have immeasurably improved our world.
From the Hardcover edition.
- Sales Rank: #615427 in eBooks
- Published on: 2011-01-05
- Released on: 2011-01-05
- Format: Kindle eBook
Amazon.com Review
Engineers, Henry Petroski observes, are sometimes their own worst enemies, at least so far as communicating their work to the general public is concerned. Some engineers, of course, have been exceptions. One of the unlikely heroes of Petroski's Remaking the World, an entertaining foray into some of engineering's finest (and, on occasion, less exalted) moments, is Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz, who combined a great talent for design and engineering with a keenly practiced flair for self-promotion. Another is Washington Gale Ferris, the inventor of the Ferris wheel, who concocted several dangerous eyesores before arriving at the design familiar to amusement-park patrons.
Successful at explaining themselves or not, engineers are largely responsible for the world as we know it, and Petroski examines their work to discuss how good design and technology combine to produce the desired results. That combination involves much trial and error, and, as Petroski writes, "artifacts from paper clips to steamships evolve by removing some real or perceived failure of their ancestors to achieve unqualified success." Drawing on examples from past and present, Petroski offers an up-close view of how engineers do their work, and his history is full of surprises and pleasures. --Gregory McNamee
From Library Journal
Petroski, perhaps best known for The Pencil (LJ 3/1/90) and The Evolution of Useful Things (LJ 12/92), here collects columns written originally as essays for American Scientist, an engineering society publication. As such, the 18 selections, aimed at raising the reader's consciousness about how important and far-reaching engineering is to civilization and society, are accessible to a lay readers with an interest in technology and society. Several pieces are about particular engineers (e.g., Henry Robert, who wrote the Rules of Order, was first a military engineer) or engineering projects (the Channel Tunnel, the Ferris Wheel); others are provocative (the flaws of engineering software, the creep of technology). Always well written, though seldom off the "engineering is crucial!" soapbox, this is an excellent choice for general collections with a literate readership interested in technology?and a good gift for the engineers on your Christmas list.?Mark L. Shelton, Univ. of Massachusetts Medical Ctr., Worcester
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A disappointingly flat collection of musings on engineering history. Petroski's concern, as in previous works such as The Pencil (1990), is the interdependence of engineering and society--the role of engineers in shaping the world we live in, but also the fact that engineering's achievements are driven not purely by technology but by economics, politics, and culture. But in demonstrating these truths through chronicles of great engineered projects and portraits of interesting engineers like Isambard Kingdom Brunel, he largely leaves out the ingredient that would really enlighten the reader--the engineering itself. ``The tapering at the top of the building demanded some especially tricky structural engineering,'' Petroski hints, with regard to Malaysia's Petronas Twin Towers, the world's tallest. But he leaves it at that, satisfied to provide a sketchy account of the building's materials and facilities, and a slight chronology of the project. Similarly, ``improvements in tunneling, such as the chore of getting rid of the soil,'' would seem to be a main topic in the history of the Channel Tunnel, but that phrase appears merely as a transition in Petroski's lifeless parade of 19th-century tunnel plans. Without using his tantalizing examples--pioneering soil mechanicist Karl Terzaghi and the rise and decline of the transatlantic steamship--to explain any engineering principles, they remain little more than aimless encyclopedia entries. Perhaps this is because they were written for a scientifically oriented audience (most appeared in American Scientist), with the intention of highlighting the historical and social context. Still, only occasionally, as in a chapter using the various uses of wireless communication to illustrate the unpredictable evolution of technology, do they seem to ascend above the assembled facts to a salient idea. Petroski is a little petulant about the respect engineering gets (as from the executors of Alfred Nobel's bequest), but he's squandered an opportunity to propagate a real sense of the science and labor of builders and inventors. (22 illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
26 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
For Petroski Fans Only
By Steve Harrison
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
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent Read
By Jim T
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...
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Spendid short essays - (a must for any Petroski fan)
By from the US
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.
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