Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineering

201 Pages·1998·1.95 MB·English

by  Henry Petroski

“Highly readable.… What Petroski does best is to make civil engineering
understandable to a general audience.… This book is guaranteed to make
any reader appreciate the work these creative professionals do for us all.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“One lays this book down with a renewed appreciation for the work of all
these ‘men and women of progress,’ and for the grace and insight of the
writer who tells their stories so well.”
—The Sciences
“[Remaking the World] is a great introduction to the world of engineering
and an education that ensures you will never regard the house in which you
live, the roads upon which you travel or the technology with which you
work in the same ways again.”
—Post & Courier (South Carolina)
“A rewarding read … the book’s charm lies in the countless anecdotes and
bits of historic and engineering trivia that pepper each essay, rich details
guaranteed to stay with you.”
—Forbes
HENRY PETROSKI
ALSO BY
Invention by Design
Engineers of Dreams
Design Paradigms
The Evolution of Useful Things
The Pencil
Beyond Engineering
To Engineer Is Human
HENRY PETROSKI
REMAKING THE WORLD
Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesić 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. He is the author of seven previous
books.

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, JANUARY 1999
Copyright © 1997 by Henry Petroski
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a
division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally
published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1997.
Most of the essays in this volume were originally published, sometimes in slightly different form, in American Scientist.
The Library of Congress has cataloged
the Knopf edition as follows: Petroski, Henry.
Remaking the world: adventures in engineering / by Henry Petroski.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-30777320-3
I. Engineering. I. Title.
TA145.P47 1997
620-dc21 97-29328 CIP
Author photograph © Catherine Petroski
www.randomhouse.com
v3.1
TO MY SISTER, MARIANNE
The scientist seeks to understand what is; the engineer seeks to create what never was.
—attributed to Theodore von Kármán
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
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 Pamana Canal
The Ferris Wheel
Hoover Dam
The Channel Tunnel
The Petronas Towers
Acknowledgments and Bibliography
List of Illustrations