Remaking the World Adventures in Engineering

by PETROSKI, HENRY

• ISBN13: 9780375700248
• ISBN10: 0375700242
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-12-29
• Publisher: Vintage

Summary

Science/Engineering "Petroski has an inquisitive mind, and he is a fine writer. . . . [He] takes us on a lively tour of engineers, their creations and their necessary turns of mind." --Los Angeles Times From the Ferris wheel to the integrated circuit, feats of engineering have changed our environment in countless ways, big and small. In Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineering, Duke University's Henry Petroski focuses on the big: Malaysia's 1,482-foot Petronas Towers as well as the Panama Canal, a cut through the continental divide that required the excavation of 311 million cubic yards of earth. Remaking the World tells the stories behind the man-made wonders of the world, from squabbles over the naming of the Hoover Dam to the effects the Titanic disaster had on the engineering community of 1912. Here, too, are the stories of the personalities behind the wonders, from the jaunty Isambard Kingdom Brunel, designer of nineteenth-century transatlantic steamships, to Charles Steinmetz, oddball genius of the General Electric Company, whose office of preference was a battered twelve-foot canoe. Spirited and absorbing, Remaking the World is a celebration of the creative instinct and of the men and women whose inspirations have immeasurably improved our world. "Petroski [is] America's poet laureate of technology. . . . Remaking the World is another fine book." --Houston Chronicle "Remaking the World really is an adventure in engineering." --San Diego Union-Tribune

Author Biography

Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and Professor of History at Duke University, where he also serves as chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The author of seven previous books, he has received grants from the National Science Foundation and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Humanities Center.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>

Table of Contents

Images of an Engineer Alfred Nobel’s Prizes Henry Martyn Robert James Nasmyth

On the Backs of Envelopes Good Drawings and Bad Dreams Failed Promises

In Context Men and Women of Progress Soil Mechanics Is Technology Wired?

Harnessing Steam

The Great Eastern Driven by Economics

The Panama Canal

The Ferris Wheel Hoover Dam

The Channel Tunnel

The Petronas Towers

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