The Road Taken: The History and Future of America's Infrastructure
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.60 (956 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 163286360X |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 336 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-07-18 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
His goal is to create a more informed electorate that will weigh in with political leaders about long-standing safety issues posed by obsolete and decrepit infrastructure. A labor of love by a lucid writer." Wall Street Journal"Petroski has a clear eye, a mellifluous prose style and a knack for spicing deep research with personal anecdotes." Washington Post"This is vital reading." Booklist"Public infrastructure is often deemed interesting only to policy wonks, but Petroski (The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance), a professor of history and civil engineering at Duke University, proves that he can make it accessible and fascinating for a wider readership. With an engineer’s technical knowledge and a historian’s eye, he offers a nuanced argument about the political, financial and engineering calculus that contributes to failures." Nature"One of the clearest (and mos
From parkways to potholes "The Road Taken", an engaging book about our nation's infrastructure, borrows its title (almost) from Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken", penned early in the last century. The book's chapters are phrases from that poem and author Henry Petroski fills them with a great deal of information abou. A Must Read if we are serious about future I have just started the book but it is absolutely enthralling.Petroski has an incredible knowledge of the subject matter and somehow makes utilitarian objects such as roads and bridges seem fascinating. (My background in civil engineering may help form this opinion.) I think anyone will benefit from. Roads Should be so Long and Flat Compared to Petroski's other engineering discourses (e.g. "To Engineer is Human") this seemed a bit long and labored. Still some interesting details on roads and bridges, not so much on railroads and canals. The humor is there, but slightly overwhelmed by less interesting detail.There are suggestion
The American Society of Civil Engineers has, in its latest report, given American roads and bridges a grade of D and C+, respectively, and has described roughly sixty-five thousand bridges in the United States as "structurally deficient." This crisis--and one need look no further than the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota to see that it is indeed a crisis--shows little sign of abating short of a massive change in attitude amongst politicians and the American public. The road we take in the next decade toward rebuilding our aging infrastructure will in large part determine our future national prosperity.. Recounting the long history behind America’s highway system, Petroski reveals the genesis of our interstate numbering system (even roads go east-west, odd go north-south), the inspiration behind the center line that has divided roads for decades, and the creation of such taken-for-granted objects as guardrails, stop signs, and traffic lights--all crucial parts of our national and local infrastructure. A compelling work of history, The Road Taken is also an urgent clarion call aimed at American citizens, politicians, and anyone with a vested interest in our economic well-being. Renowned historian and engineer Henry Petroski explores the past, present, and future of America's crumbling infrastructure.Physical infrastructure in the
. He is the author of eighteen previous books, including The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance, To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design, Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America, and The Essential Engineer. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. He lives in North Carolina