Product Details
Bridges: Three Thousand Years of Defying Nature

Bridges: Three Thousand Years of Defying Nature
By David Brown

Price:

This item is not available for purchase from this store.
Click here to go to Amazon to see other purchasing options.


9 new or used available from $6.35

Average customer review:

Product Description

This stunning visual presentation, filled with photographs and illustrations depicting the world's greatest bridges, explains the manners in which laborers, engineers and architects have surmounted the problem of spanning the seemingly impassable from ancient times to the 21st century. A brilliantly written text explains in understandable terms the physics of different bridge types, while fascinating histories describe the "hows" and "whys" behind the world's most recognizable structures.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #1838070 in Books
  • Published on: 2001-11-12
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 176 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Brown offers a history of more than 100 of the world's greatest bridges, organized chronologically. He explains their origins and structure principle, beginning with the ancient world (Rome and China) and the medieval period (France, Italy, and the Czech Republic). Chapters deal with bridges of iron and stone, steel, concrete, and those with stay cables. Each chapter has an introduction, and vital statistics are given for each bridge--location, date of construction, and its designer. Brown writes that from prehistoric times to the present, the line of technology is unbroken; what has changed is its level of sophistication and comprehensibility. There are more than 300 color and black-and-white illustrations in this very informative account. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
The world's greatest bridges, organized chronologically... There are more than 300 color and black-and-white illustrations in this very informative account. (George Cohen Booklist 20060201)

A wonderful coffeetable book for architecture and civil engineering buffs... this one is truly global in scope. (Denise A. Brush Science Books and Films 200606)

Exceptional clarity of form and superb color photographs... clear, complete and suitably journalistic prose... Essential for undergraduate design collections. (Paul Glassman Library Journal 20060401)

Full of beautiful color photos and diagrams, the book offers a detailed and affectionate look at these construction marvels. (Science News )

About the Author
David J. Brown is an author, editor and librarian. He is the author of How They Were Built, a children's book of architecture.

Customer Reviews

missing something3
This covers every possible aspect of bridge building that a layperson could think of. Except for one thing. It hardly mentions the laborers who are responsible for the work that made these bridges possible. Yes, a bridge is made from concrete, brick, steel, timber, cable, iron, and whatnot, but what about the blood, sweat, and tears? The book goes into the construction of piers, the methods used to erect various parts of the bridge, and so forth. But it stops short of mentioning how the laborers were organized, who they were, where they came from, and how many of them died building these works of art.

So, although the book filled me with knowledge, I finished it feeling a little bit empty, as if I had seen the surface of all the seas and oceans of the world, but never a whale or fish.