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Great Projects : The Epic Story of the Building of America, from the Taming of the Mississippi to the Invention of the Internet by James Tobin (2001, Hardcover)
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherFree Press
ISBN-100743210646
ISBN-139780743210645
eBay Product ID (ePID)1929076
Product Key Features
Book TitleGreat Projects : The Epic Story of the Building of America, from the Taming of the Mississippi to the Invention of the Internet
Number of Pages336 Pages
LanguageEnglish
TopicIndustrial Engineering, Engineering (General), Civil / General, United States / General
Publication Year2001
IllustratorYes
GenreTechnology & Engineering, History
AuthorJames Tobin
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height1 in
Item Weight44.8 Oz
Item Length10 in
Item Width8.8 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN2001-033016
Dewey Edition21
Dewey Decimal609.73
Table Of ContentContents Introduction 1 WATER IntroductionCHAPTER ONETHE LOWER MISSISSIPPICHAPTER TWOTHE COLORADO 2 POWER IntroductionCHAPTER THREEEDISON'S LIGHTCHAPTER FOURELECTRIC NATION 3 METROPOLIS IntroductionCHAPTER FIVEWATER FOR THE MILLIONSCHAPTER SIXAMMANN'S BRIDGE 4 PATHWAYS IntroductionCHAPTER SEVENTHE BIG DIGCHAPTER EIGHTTHE INTERNETAfterwordAuthor's Note on SourcesAcknowledgmentsIllustration CreditsIndex
SynopsisSince the earliest days of the republic, great engineering projects have shaped American landscapes and expressed American dreams. The ambition to build lies as close to the nation's heart as the belief in liberty. We live in a built civilization, connected one to another in an enormous web of technology. Yet we have all too often overlooked the role of engineers and builders in American history. With glorious photographs and epic narrative sweep,Great Projectsat last gives their story the prominence it deserves.Each of the eight projects featured in this masterful narrative was a milestone in its own right: the flood-control works of the lower Mississippi, Hoover Dam, Edison's lighting system, the spread of electricity across the nation, the great Croton Aqueduct, the bridges of New York City, Boston's revamped street system, known as the Big Dig, and the ever-evolving communica- tions network called the Internet. Each project arose from a heroic vision. Each encountered obstacles. Each reveals a tale of genius and perseverance.James Tobin, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award, explains the four essential tasks of the engineer: to protect people from the destructive force of water while harnessing it for the enormous good it can do; to provide people with electricity, the motive force of modern life; to make great cities habitable and vital; and to create the pathways that connect place to place and person to person. Tobin focuses on the indi- viduals behind our greatest structures of earth and concrete and steel: James Buchanan Eads, who walked on the floor of the Mississippi to learn the river's secrets; Arthur Powell Davis and Frank Crowe, who imagined a dam that could transform the West; Thomas Edison, who envisioned a new way to light the world; Samuel Insull, the organizational mastermind of the electrical revolution; the long-forgotten John Bloomfield Jervis, who assured New York's future with the gift of clean water; Othmar Ammann, the modest Swiss-American who fought his mentor to become the first engineer to bridge the lower Hudson River; Fred Salvucci, the antihighway rebel who transformed the face of Boston; and J.C.R. Licklider, the obscure scientist who first imagined the Internet. Here, too, are the workers who scorned hardship to turn the engineers' dreams into reality, deep underground and high in the sky, through cold and heat and danger. InGreat Projects-- soon to be a major PBS television series by the Emmy Award-winning Great Projects Film Company -- we share their dreams and witness their struggles; we watch them create the modern world we walk through each day -- the "city upon a hill" that became our America.
LC Classification NumberTA23.T63 2001
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